Beating Drum Heart
by Tuna Salad Sonnet
Summary: “You know, Lex, there's a reason we call you the Silent Hero. Maybe you'll finally find it out there.” -COMPLETE- Chapter 6: In which things change.
1. Happy NotBirthday

(By the way, there will be some mostly-vague het romance in later chapters. It _will_ be cracky. It _will not_ involve Larxene. And the rating will go up to PG for fantasy violence later too, but this is Kingdom Hearts. It was _made_ for fantasy violence.)

I do not own _Kingdom Hearts _or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.

_**Ships: **_(Friendship) Lexaeus&Zexion  
_**Spoilers: **_ KHII - Second visit of Port Royal.  
_**Warnings: **_None.  
_**Notes:**_ This chapter takes place during KHI, probably while Sora & Co. are in Atlantica or thereabouts.

* * *

_**Beating Drum Heart  
**_**Chapter 1: Happy Not-Birthday**

_I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom._  
~ Bob Dylan

* * *

Everyone knew Zexion didn't like to get his hands dirty. But Lexaeus wasn't everyone and he watched as the Cloaked Schemer wiped warm Gummi wax off his bare hands with a rag. He smiled up from under his bangs. "What do you think?"

The Silent Hero crossed his arms over his chest and had to crane his neck to take in the entirety of the new ship. "...You know what I think."

"Ah, Lexaeus. Truly you are the master of critique."

"You know I think it's the best you've done, don't you?" He leaned a hand on the younger's shoulders, easily forcing his knees to give out as he pushed down. Zexion laughed and brushed the hand away.

"Only joking. I _am_ rather proud of this one." He slung the rag over a bare shoulder, and pressed a button on the remote next to the rest of his tools. The gangway hissed, then lowered down to the bay floor at their feet.

"Shall we?" Zexion asked, gesturing with his arm.

Lexaeus shook his head in amusement, stepping up into the ship.

---

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but you've outdone yourself. _Again._" He reached up and just-barely brushed the top of the glass dome. He took a seat behind the wheel and looked at the dark control panel that controlled the engines and (massive) cannons he had seen below. "Have you ever wondered what the Neophytes would say if they found out you were the genius behind all this?"

Zexion smirked out the side of the cockpit, looking across the castle's Gummi bay at the other Gummi ships he had designed, built and modified almost entirely on his own (the Illusionists pitched in a hand sometimes, but they weren't entirely useful. Especially around the blowtorch, poor highly flammable things). "Xigbar would have a lot of explaining to do, first of all."

"Why do you let him take all your credit?" Lexaeus asked, curious.

"The man controls space. He can move from one world to another in the blink of an eye. He doesn't require a Gummi ship, and thus do I let him... amuse himself with the notion that he's the expert on Inter-Space travel, even in the realm of Gummi block technology, when in reality, he doesn't have an inkling about these ships."

"Ah." Lexaeus folded his hands. "You're doing the vocabulary thing again."

Zexion blinked. "What vocabulary thing?"

"You expand your vocabulary when you get annoyed. Ienzo did it too."

"Oh. Where were we?"

"Xigbar? Gummi ships?"

"Right. All the same, he might be upset with me when he finds out I ripped his ship apart to build this one."

There was a long silence as Zexion leaned against the glass, continuing to stare out at his creations. Eventually he turned back to evaluate his friend's frown.

"...You took apart Xigbar's ship." Repetition of a statement, not a question.

"To make this one, yes."

Lexaeus didn't stutter, didn't flounder for words. He just waited for an explanation.

Zexion sighed. "You realized that his ship isn't the only one missing, didn't you?"

Neither of them moved besides V's ever-so-slight tightening of the eyes. He had _thought_ some of the blocks down below looked like some of his own. But their outer layer had been melted down, so they had been shiny and metallic, slightly smaller and tougher...

So Zexion had taken apart Xigbar's ship and merged it with his own. This was his ship. He looked around the cockpit with new eyes. "I can't accept this," he said, not realizing he had skipped Zexion's question.

But he was used to it. (Chunks of their conversation often went missing, as they were perfectly capable of figuring out each other's riddles in their own thought processes.) "Oh yes, you can. If you can help Luxord design Castle Oblivion into all hours of the morning when Marluxia and Larxene are supposed to be doing it, you can accept a new Gummi ship."

Lexaeus tried, in vain, to fight the twitching at the corner of his lips. "Zexion..." He let the shared smile take its course before posing his next question. "This isn't just because of my helping Luxord, is it?"

The silence in the cockpit thickened at an alarming rate. VI dropped his eyes to the tips of his boots. "It's Aeleus's birthday today."

"Technically speaking... You're making a present for someone you've never met."

Zexion raised his head again so quickly his bangs got into the one eye he depended on _not_ being covered. "Oh, no. You are _not_ pulling that excuse on me."

Lexaeus raised an eyebrow. _'Excuse?'_ he asked silently.

"Who was the one who reorganized the whole lab after Xaldin and Xigbar..."

"Obliterated it?"

"In a word, yes."

"That would be me," V answered, suddenly the epitome of unenthusiastic about the direction this conversation was taking.

"And who was the one who nursed Vexen back to health after he refused to sleep for... was it a month?"

"That-"

"And when Luxord and I got lost in Wonderland? Who found us?"

Lexaeus didn't even bother to start a sentence, knowing the other would-

"And Xemnas nearly _killed_ Saïx before you convinced him to stay."

There was a pause.

"Is that all?" Lexaeus asked.

"Not nearly. I could go on and on about the amazing things you do that you don't take credit for. You deserve a vacation, a trip, _something._ This was the least I could do."

"Well... If it'll make you some semblance of happy, I suppose I could try," the man smiled, without fighting it this time.

"If that's the motivation you need to get out of here, than yes, it would make me _very_ happy. Or... you know." Zexion pushed himself off the control panel and stood next to his seated friend.

"Right," Lexaeus smiled down at the wheel, before remembering a very important little fact. "Xemnas will be wondering where I've gone."

"You'll be off on a mission. Xigbar said there's a spot of Inter-Space that's been loosing Worlds recently. He wanted to try exploring it, but you could probably waste a good couple of days around there. The coordinates are programmed into the console already."

"...Let me guess. There are enough supplies down in the storage room to last me a week," he said, looking up at the younger.

VI shrugged. "I knew you'd agree in the end. And before you try delaying this any more, Xaldin and Xigbar were planning on making you a cake."

Lexaeus furrowed his eyebrows. "That doesn't sound so bad."

"When I last left the kitchen, they were putting their goggles on."

"I'll just start the ship up, then." He pressed the button in the center of the wheel. The control panel flashed on and off before all of the switches and dials remained glowing orange.

Zexion smiled proudly as the engines hummed below them. He patted his friend on the shoulder, before turning to leave. He paused in the doorway back down to the depths of the ship.

"You know, Lex, there's a reason we call you the Silent Hero." He looked back at him from behind shimmering bangs. "Maybe you'll finally find it out there."

The Hero frowned at this, waiting until he heard the gangway lowering signal and Zexion departing. He turned back to the controls and started the flight sequence.

_Perhaps I will._

---

He wasn't sure how many hours had passed since that conversation ended, but he made a mental note to make sure no one ever explored areas of Inter-Space where Worlds were disappearing. Overrun with Heartless ships.

He tried to push himself off the control panel, where he had been thrown in the collision with one of the remaining Worlds. Unfortunately, he realized, his head was already _outside_ the ship, along with most of his upper body.

He could see the ground below, grass sprinkled with splinters of glass. How... oddly poetic. He wondered if the prickling sensation at the back of his neck was particles of glass, or the blood rushing to his head from being halfway upside-down. At least this place smelled nice. Dry leaves and the cleanest air he had breathed in a long time.

"Hello?"

His vision was starting to slur with exhaustion, but he thought he saw a woman standing at the edge of... the clearing? Meadow? Wherever he had crash-landed.

"Hello!" he called out, far more relieved than he should be. Having an inhabitant see him would make this all the more complicated. Still, he would need help. "If you don't mind me asking, would you be able to-"

"Help you? I can certainly try," she was saying, nervously, and he could see her approaching the ship. She climbed up on a couple of dislodged Gummi blocks (looked like parts of the wing) and grabbed one of his arms. One pull and he could felt like he'd be able to dislodge himself.

Time skipped, and he was suddenly on his back in the grass. He tried to remember the fall out of the cockpit, but couldn't.

She must've moved him, the poor kind thing. He couldn't feel any glass behind his back, so he couldn't be lying right next to the ship's wreckage. He didn't want to think about how heavy he must be.

"Are you... Are you alright?" the woman asked from... somewhere. His right, his left, he wasn't sure.

Suddenly, as he breathed in the cold air (it must be nighttime, then), he was aware of the fact that he was alive. He hadn't even realized that he had been afraid of dying as the ship came crashing down. It had been some odd instinctual feeling that had guided him through the pre-crash procedure with shaking hands. But his body had reacted, and it had reacted with fear of death. How very exhilarating.

His steady breathing devolved into loud laughter. He laughed, knowing he'd be able to go back to Zexion and Vexen and his _friends_ and everyone else after all this was over. "Yes," he struggled to answer her question (no point in being impolite to the person who may have just saved your life). "Yes, I'm fine."

He was still laughing when sleep crawled through the grass and claimed him.

* * *

**AN.** Please tell me there is someone out there who loves Lexaeus as much as I do. Please. He needs more fandom love. Desperately.

Anyone care to join me on a six chapter journey of Silent Hero lovin'? Yes? Be my guest. Continue.


	2. Questions and Answers

I do not own _Kingdom Hearts _or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.

_**Ships:**_ (romance of the squinty kind) Lexaeus/Nakoma (friendship) mentions of Lexaeus&Zexion, Lexaeus&Vexen  
_**Warnings: **_Fantasy violence.  
_**Notes: **_As this chapter takes place over about a week and a half, Sora & Company are/have probably journeyed through Halloween Town and Neverland while this is happening.

* * *

_**Beating Drum Heart  
**_**Chapter 2: Questions and Answers**

_You have most unusual names here. Chicahominy. Quiyough - Quiyoughcohannock. Pocahontas._

_You have the most unusual name, too. John Smith._

~ John Smith and Pocahontas, Disney's Pocahontas.

* * *

Heat stuck to the black of his jacket, likes flies trapped in tar, like people trapped in Darkness (cold cold ice pooling in your chest look out Ienzo Even look-).

Lexaeus groaned and pressed a hand to his forehead, the dew on his fingers cool against the sunlight that turned the insides of his eyelids bright red. Now wasn't the time to let old nightmares creep up.

He blinked his eyes open. The sun was already beaming in the center of the sky: high noon. He sat up and shed his jacket as quickly as he could, the wind cooling the sweat that clung to his arms and white wife beater.

He had crashed in a forest clearing. The trees were tall and grew far apart, bare of any branches until high up on the trunk. He was reminded of giant stone pillars, towering over a temple ground. A stream garbled nearby, mirroring the sky, blue bleached by the heat. The grass was sparse, but soft. Everything smelled of fresh air and new soil. It was springtime.

And despite the fond memories of days in the Radiant Garden forests that fought through his weakened defences, he had no part to play here. And he would have to start repairing his (not) birthday gift soon.

Lexaeus cracked his neck and stood up, feeling his body sway the tiniest fraction of an inch. For someone with his structure and battle experience, that probably wasn't a good sign. _Repair. Just not today._

_Not _much_ today,_ an opposing voice in his mind corrected. He lifted a hand, dismissing simple blue lights from his fingertips. They scattered across the clearing like fireflies, picking up pieces of glass and flying back to the ship to reconstruct the cockpit.

The sun crossed the sky as Lexaeus walked through the woods behind his giant gummi ship. It was a long walk, but then walks tend to be when you're attempting to straighten trees back to their upright position and iron out scars in the landscape.

A twig snapped under his boot as the man came to a rest, peering up at the tops of the trees. The walk had apparently been several hours long, as the sun burned orange through the broken branches at the top. He had reached the spot the ship had crashed into the forest.

He turned and started walking back towards the stream, cracking his knuckles as he went (the minute finger movement needed to press earth back into order was quite straining after a while). The forest was very quiet, absent of birdsong or the chattering of small mammals. It might've been odd, had there not been an interplanetary space ship lodged in the forest. He'd have to be careful when taking off: straight up and out.

A few minutes later and his boots hit the pebbles of the embankment. He sat on a choice boulder by its edge and watched the sun's reflections trace golden paths up his arms. It was going to be a long day.

And then a shape eased into view across the water.

She was tucked close to the earth at first, crawling with her hands and feet out of the undergrowth. He couldn't see the entire process of one stride, but she'd put one foot far in front of the other, and let her hands catch the rest of the body up. It was strange and slow and graceful.

She stood up when she reached the bank, her hands folded neatly in front of her. He wondered if the woman who had pulled him from his ship last night had bothered to stick around, and if this was her.

He couldn't have called her short, because he had yet to find someone who has taller than he was. (Even Xaldin's head only came up to his eyes.) In fact, he thought she might've stood taller than Larxene, if the Nymph didn't wear high heels. Her skin was a coppery brown and her hair black, looped and tied up at the back of her head. Her clothes were made of animal skin and a necklace made of pale bone hung on her neck. Her eyes were small and dark and exceedingly cautious as she came forward.

The stream ran on as they observed one another. Several long long seconds passed, and a bird sang somewhere.

"Wingapo." She was the first to speak.

"Wingapo," he replied.

She tilted her head slightly, and he saw her eyes flicker past him into the trees. She was wondering if he was alone. "I… hope you wouldn't mind if I asked you some questions?" she asked.

This was where it would get complicated. The Organization had been given orders to keep their identities as Nobodies a secret, to prevent interference with other worlds.

They had also received orders from Xemnas to eliminate anyone who got in the way of completing a mission. According to that logic, he should refuse to answer this woman's questions and get back to the World That Never Was as soon as possible.

But, Lexaeus also thought about the status Organization Members II through VI had. Xemnas had given them the ability to send others on missions if need be. And, in a way, Zexion _had_ sent him on a mission to relax. And since he probably wasn't going to be very relaxed stranded on a world sitting on the edge of the encroaching darkness, it was probably a good idea to get moving, and as quickly as possible.

And getting help would definitely move the process along.

He looked up at the woman, waiting for him to answer. "I apologize. I was just," he paused briskly, wondering how he should word it, "organizing my priorities."

She shook her head. "It's alright."

"To answer your earlier question, you can ask me any question you like. But I cannot guarantee I'll be able to answer it."

She nodded, dipping her feet into the stream and crossing halfway, before climbing up on a rock in the middle of the water. (That would probably be the only time they'd be on the same height, what with him sitting down.) Her second question: "Where is your camp?"

---

The walk back was short. The woman kept her distance, standing along the water's edge and staring up at the giant monstrosity that had crashed through her forest home.

This was going to be an interesting set of questions. "I suppose you have a lot of questions for me," he said.

She nodded. "I do. To tell you the truth, I don't really know where to begin."

He wandered up to the ship to give his first proper damage check. The two upper wings had snapped off and crushed the lower ones into pieces. A giant gummi jigsaw puzzle. "Take your time," he said to her over his shoulder. "I have plenty."

"Well…I guess I'll start with the biggest one on my mind," she said mostly to herself. He turned from the ship to watch her. She was gathering fallen branches and twigs in her arms. "Are you a spirit?"

Alright. _That_ was certainly a different way to open a conversation. "I suppose I am, in a way. I do have memories of dying." _Someone else's memories._

"Oh, that's good," the woman sighed, throwing the wood onto an area of dry soil on the river bank.

Lexaeus couldn't help blinking at that, perplexed.

Her smile faded immediately. "Not that you remember dying, I mean! I mean, you see, I'm on a vision quest, and…"

He gave a quiet 'ah' to that. He had read about vision quests in a couple of books. A youth would go into the woods, alone, and fast until experiencing some sort of spiritual encounter through meditation.

"You're hoping that I could give you some of the answers you seek." He crossed the clearing slowly, back towards her and the river. This was getting complicated quickly. It looked like he'd have to use her problem to his advantage. (Xaldin was always better with the manipulation through rhetoric.)

"Well, if it's not too much of a problem," she said as he kneeled in front of the firewood, across from her. She was still cautious, but she had never shown fear through her eyes. If anything, this woman seemed to be more anxious to meet a spirit than she could ever be afraid of one.

"Not a problem at all. In fact, I might need your help."

She nodded, nervous.

He continued, "I'm not exactly a spirit from around here." He held a hand over the dry wood. He decided that, as long as we putting on this spirit alias, he might as well practice wordless spell casting.

She watched as he coaxed the twigs at the bottom to burst into flame. "I've noticed."

They watched as the flames flickered against the gathering darkness. (He wondered if he'd dream again tonight.)

"My name is Nakoma," she said. He lifted his eyes to see her smiling slightly.

"I am Lexaeus," he replied. He mentally froze. Why in the world didn't he use a different name?

"Lecks-ee-us," she chewed on the sounds, like a course foreign meal. She 'hmmed' to herself, smiling at her toes. "Now _that's_ a strange name."

In that moment, Lecks-ee-us wondered what in the world he would be feeling if he had a heart right now.

---

When Lexaeus woke up, he found that 'Nakoma' had disappeared back into her woods. Probably back to her own camp across the stream.

Eventually, she showed up. It's like she snuck in through a side door. The clearing was empty as he sorted out the pieces of the wings, and then she was sitting on a stump, holding a red block in her hands, squeezing it until it squished between her fingers.

"Morning," he greeted.

She jumped. And laughed at herself. "Good morning," she replied.

"You never did tell me why you were on a vision quest last night." He folded his legs into a lotus position, deciding to settle down while he separated the orange and the yellow blocks from the red and blacks.

She tossed her block into the appropriate pile. "Well, it's about my friend. Pocahontas?"

Lexaeus waited for her to continue, and looked up when she didn't. She slapped herself in the forehead.

"Right, you're a spirit from _another_ world," she sighed, putting her chin in her hand, her elbows resting on her knees. "I've got a lot of explaining to do, then."

Nakoma settled down on her knees and started sorting through the pile of gummi blocks with him as she told a tale of men with pale skin sailing across the salt water and arriving on their shores. There were many misunderstandings that had escalated into violence, and underneath it, a tale of star-cross'd love. The chief's daughter and Nakoma's best friend, Pocahontas, had fallen in love with a man named John Smith, captain of the ship.

Lexaeus listened intently. Zexion always liked to hear tales of a world's inhabitants. It made their own world feel a little… _livelier_.

"We received word some months ago that John Smith… Well, he passed on, so to say." Nakoma's fingers lingered on a black block. The Nobody had noticed that no matter what, she had squeezed every block she had picked up. She was curious, in a quiet way.

"My condolences," he nodded solemnly.

"She has gotten better, I'll admit. But she just doesn't seem the same." She dropped the block into its pile, the concern for her friend clear in her face.

"Then I'm afraid you've come a long way to hear something you probably already know. The only thing that can heal the wounds made by death is time. Time, and your friendship," Lexaeus said. The words came very easily, as did the inflection. Aeleus's memories of Even's mother's death had shuffled around to the front of his mind to assist him.

Nakoma sighed. "I know. I just wish I knew how to help."

An ironic smile came onto his face as he plotted his next sentence. "I know the feeling. You want to do anything you can to help a friend. I suppose you could say that's why I'm here."

The woman raised her eyes and looked around the clearing. "You're looking for something too?"

Something like a chuckle rumbled in his throat. "Well, we're all looking for something, in the end. What I meant was that my friend was actually trying to help _me_."

"By sending you here?"

Lexaeus looked around then, too. It was a beautiful world. "In an exceedingly indirect manner, I suppose he did."

Nakoma smiled. "And to get back to your world, you have to fix this… thing, right?" She leaned back on her heels, trying to see where the ship began and ended.

"Hm." He nodded.

"Well, then, I'll help," she said simply, picking up an orange block and tossing it into the air before catching it again. "Friends help friends, right?"

He tilted his head at her, frowning. She bit her lip slightly. "Well, I, uh… I guess we're not friends yet. More like acquaint-"

Lexaeus held out his right hand, across the pile of sorted blocks between them.

Nakoma took in this gesture with raised eyebrows before looking into his face. She laughed a little. "Pocahontas told me about this."

She put her hand into his, and their fingers closed around each other's hands. They moved their hands up and down: a handshake.

"I'd be honoured to have a mortal's help," he said. All for good measure.

She chuckled sheepishly. He smirked.

---

About two days later, she asked, "Is the world you come from much different than ours?"

Now that the gummi blocks were sorted into colour-coded piles, it was relatively easy to snap the wings back together. "Very different," he replied, snapping a part of the hull back on. The upper right wing of the ship was ready to be reattached, and Lexaeus reflected once again on the user friendliness of the technology, as Nakoma clicked the very tip into place.

She looked over the expanse of the huge wing, observing the patchwork pattern of black and orange, before looking at his reflection. Without the layer of wax, the wing was a little like a huge mirror. She smirked. "You're going to have to be more specific."

"Lift your end a bit," he said, raising the two corners nearest him up on small pillars of earth. "And that wasn't a very polite way of asking a spirit for information."

Her copper skin flushed, embarrassed with herself, as she lifted the wing's tip. "Sorry."

A third pillar supported the final tip. "It's alright."

"What I meant to say was how is it different?" She hopped up on the wing, testing the feel of the squishy material under her feet. Even with the added height of the wing on the pillars, she only came up to his chest.

"My world," he paused slightly, thinking of how to begin describing the differences, "is much darker than yours. The sun never rises, and we have lights that stay on the ground instead of stars. And the moon," he suppressed a quiet laugh in his lungs at her enthralled face, "is shaped like a heart."

No point in lying when truth was stranger than fiction.

"Wow…" Nakoma looked to the sky, probably imagining a heart-shaped moon. "A world where the stars live on the earth?"

"If you would like to interpret it that way, I won't stop you," Lexaeus shrugged.

She didn't seem to hear him. "It reminds me of something Kekata said once."

"Kekata?"

"Our medicine man," she said, taking her eyes off the wispy clouds.

"What did he say?"

"He said that every man's heart has a light side and a dark side. And if your sun never rises, and the stars live on the earth…" she smiled to herself. "Do you suppose your world is the dark side of mine?"

The man only stared for a long while in thought. It was making her uncomfortable, but she didn't say anything, fearing disrespect.

"Has anyone ever told you that you are very wise, Nakoma?" he asked, crossing his arms.

She lowered her head and avoided his eyes in embarrassment again. "Um, no."

"Well, now someone has."

She nodded. "Thank you."

Maybe this whole manipulation thing wasn't so hard. She was an excellent worker.

"Uh, how exactly are you going to get the wing up there, anyway?" she asked, changing the subject.

He flicked a hand, and the pillars shot up towards the sky, carrying the wing up to its slot on the hull. He followed on another stone elevator, stopping so he was at just the right level to slide the wing off of the pillar support and into place. The gummi ship hummed briefly, as the wing clicked back into the system. He could see the computer shine briefly down in the cockpit.

He turned his head the other way and there was Nakoma, the upward momentum having forced her to lie down on the wing's surface. She snorted through her nose, rested her chin on her forearms. "Show-off," she mumbled.

---

"What is this called again?" Nakoma couldn't avert her eyes as he twisted the cap off the glass bottle and handed it to her.

"Soda pop," Lexaeus answered. Of all the things he thought he'd never try, it was testing the reaction of an unknowing gummi ship assistant's reaction to a carbonated beverage.

She observed the bottle thoroughly, turning it in her hands and pressing her palm flat against the decorative ridges. She didn't seem to look twice at the purple liquid inside. Her thumb smoothed over the sharp edges and smooth curves of the cap. "What is it made of? I've seen stones that look similar but…" Her short fingernails tapped against the sides, the glass ringing hollow and clear.

"It's called 'glass'. In my world, we make it from sand."

"From _sand?_" She lifted the bottle up to the light of the setting sun, where purple light could be thrown onto her face. They were sitting on a log at the top of a nearby hill, relaxing after another day of reconstructing wings. Both top wings were in place. The next day would be for reattaching the bottom two, and then he'd be back to the Spirit World.

What a vacation this had turned out to be.

She lowered the bottle, setting it in her lap carefully. "Your world must be very different from mine."

He nodded. "Very different. A part of me still isn't used to it." Not two seconds after the words had slipped out did he realize how honest that had been. Why in the world had he let that slip out?

"A part of you? You mean, because you were human once?"

"We were all human once. Where I come from, at least."

The wind blew up from the trees down below, and Lexaeus swore he could hear faint chimes somewhere in the sound. He looked down (the top of her head came up to about his elbow) and saw that Nakoma's face had gone quite sombre. She stared down at her bare feet, soles stained red with soil.

He rested his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward, waiting for her to voice her thoughts. The sun was just barely over the horizon when she spoke again.

"If your world is the dark side of my world, did you live here once?" she asked, rocking on her heels slightly.

"No." Lexaeus shook his head, continuing to stare out at the horizon. "I would've liked to though."

"Do you think we could've been friends? If you had lived here?"

"Are we not friends now?" he asked, turning back to look at her over his shoulder.

She looked at him from the corner of her eye, suddenly cautious again. So he was lying again, and maybe she was catching on to that.

But, friendship was certainly better than I'm-manipulating-you-to-get-back-to-the-people-who-might've-killed-you-by-now-faster. He thought so, anyway.

Eventually she smiled, like the way she had approached him that first day a week and so many days ago. Strange and slow.

Until her face fell, and her teeth gritted against what he knew was a scream in her throat.

He stood and turned in the direction the Heartless was coming from, and was relieved to see it was alone.

Before it lowered its horns and gored him in the stomach.

_Oh, damn it._

This was a specimen he had never seen before. It looked like a young buck with short red fur and, he noted, as he took a hold of its antlers and threw it across the clearing, purple underbelly. Its round yellow eyes glowed as it stood, pawing the ground with sharp hooves.

"Nakoma." He could practically feel her heart pounding into the ground through her feet. "We are going to get back into the ship. As fast as we can."

The Heartless snorted as the sun finished sinking, warm air condensing in the cooling dusk.

"Go."

The undergrowth blurred past and the forest was quiet as they ran. Nakoma was a beige blur through the woods, and soon passed him on the way downhill. The Heartless plunged through the vegetation behind them, and the stinging pain up and down his core reminded him how sharp the antlers must be.

Before he knew it, he could see the ship, light spilling from the open gangway. (Thank goodness he had taught her how to open it.) Nakoma stood silhouetted at the top.

"Press the red button!" he shouted to her, as he crossed the small stream into the clearing. With its legs, the Heartless would leap it in a single bound and it was closing in.

"What in the world is a button?" she shouted back.

"The round thing, to your left!" He was halfway there. The Heartless had crossed the stream, he could hear its _huff huff…_

_Shing. _The ship sent out a reflera spell, and the Heartless hit the glass dome and skidded backwards. One rock pillar through its stomach and it faded into black mist.

Nakoma jogged back down the gangway as he sat down, exhausted. "Are you alright? Your stomach…"

The man focused on the smell of fresh air and clean light, letting his mind go blank save for the word 'cura'. His hand glowed a soft green and the shallow wounds in his stomach sealed themselves up.

"…is fine now, apparently," she grinned, kneeling down beside him. "Is there anything a spirit can't do?"

"Plenty." He smiled back before he could stop. "I didn't see that thing coming, did I?"

"That's true," she nodded pensively. "Is there a way to stop it?"

The smile faded immediately. "No. Not definitely. I'll show you how to protect yourself against it. And then you can pass the knowledge on to Kekata."

"Hm. Maybe my vision quest had a different meaning than I intended it to." Nakoma stared at the pillar of rock, obviously perturbed by the memory of the Heartless that had been impaled on it.

Lexaeus willed the stone to sink back into the ground. "Perhaps. If that's the way you want to look at it."

A coy smile crept up her face. "Well, you tell me. You're the spirit here. Even if I forget sometimes."

The man lay on his back, looking at the now blue-black sky. "You forget?"

"You seem like a very human spirit," she said, pulling her knees up to her chest. He wondered absently if the women in her village ever got cold at night, walking around with bare midriffs like that.

"I remember it well," he sighed, closing his eyes. "So, I'll teach you how to protect yourself. Just some protective salts and mantras."

"Not tonight, though, right?"

"No," he said, rubbing his palms against his closed eyelids. "Even spirits need beauty sleep."

She laughed, and the night descended like a blanket.

---

"Remember," the fourth and final wing slid into place, "this is the last day you can ask me questions."

His last morning here had been the same as all the others. Perfect sunshiny weather in a cloudless sky day after day. After that first morning, the animals had even started chattering again. (He wondered if Zexion would ever forgive him for the bird excrement on the top wings.)

She smirked playfully. "Hm. What's your favourite colour?"

Lexaeus stood up to his full height.

"What? Spirits have favourite colours, don't they?"

"Nakoma."

"Alright, okay. Last questions, last questions…" She looked up to the sky in thought, her hands on her hips. "Oh, right! I just remembered something."

She skipped off to the side, to a tree at the edge of the camp. She came back with the bottle of soda pop. Some of the drink must've spilled out as she had ran last night.

He couldn't help it: he laughed. "You still have it?"

"It's a gift from a spirit. I figured it wouldn't be very respectful if I lost it." She grinned shyly. "I was just wondering if I should give it back to you, or if I should keep it?"

"Well, if you're going to keep it, you have to drink some first," Lexaeus said, folding his arms seriously.

The woman nodded just as seriously, and went to unscrew the cap. Though, if she had ran down the hill with that in her hand, being chased by a Heartless…

"Just not from that bottle," he corrected himself, taking it and disappearing up the gangplank. He came back and pushed a new (tamer) bottle into her hands. "Remember. Drink it to claim it."

She laughed nervously, and unscrewed the top with a hiss. She put the rim to her lips and tilted the bottle back, downing a gulp quickly. She lowered it just as quickly and brought a hand to her mouth, stifling more laughter. "What… what in the world was _that?_"

"Soda pop," Lexaeus shrugged.

She coughed. "Alright. One last question." She lifted her eyes. "Do you think you'd come back one day?"

He closed his eyes in thought. "A spirit ship can't cross the rifts between our worlds very easily. And besides, spirits don't always bring good news."

"I know," Nakoma nodded. "You were just… We're friends. And…"

"It's always hard to say goodbye." He opened his eyes.

A bird sang in the trees and the wind blew by again. Maybe she heard the chimes too, because she said, "You're right. I should get back to Pocahontas."

"And I should get back to my friends. Who knows what they've been up to without me."

"Even spirits have friends to worry about?" she smiled again, screwing the bottle back up.

"I thought you had given me your last question," he said, raising an eyebrow.

She laughed, backing away. "I guess I snuck one last one in. Ana, Lexaeus."

"Ana," he replied.

And with that, he climbed the gangplank up into the ship, and sat down in the cockpit again. He could see Nakoma standing in the stream, on top of a rock, the bottle in one hand and the bag of protective salts he had given her around her neck. She raised her arm in a long sweeping wave.

He smiled despite himself.

The engines obeyed his command of a vertical take-off, and he left the beautiful world behind.

* * *

**AN.** Don't ask how it happened. Because I don't know how. But it did. And you just read it.


	3. White Shadows

I do not own _Kingdom Hearts _or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.

_**Ships:**_ (friendship) Let's just make this simple and say Original Six?_**  
Warnings: **_None!  
_**Notes: **_This chapter takes place during Sora & Company's first visit to Hollow Bastion and his return to Traverse Town, methinks.

* * *

_**Beating Drum Heart  
**_**Chapter 3: White Shadows**

_A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it._  
~ George Moore

* * *

The monitor flicked onto the Forge of Superfluous Effort and the image of a man with heavy dark hair sitting on one of the benches. He turned from sharpening his spear when an automated voice announced that there was an 'Incoming Signal. Source: Allied Gummi ship'.

Xaldin turned and grinned, resting his spear across his knees. "Lexaeus. Back from your vacation?"

Xigbar appeared on screen before he could respond, having somehow managed to cover himself in soot. His one gold eye glared through the black residue. "Lexaeus!"

"Number Two. Do I have to ask?"

Xigbar grinned as only he could, raising his hands innocently. "We weren't in the labs. Scout's honour."

Xaldin scoffed in the background. "He was just trying out some new wiring on a gummi ship."

"Speaking of which! _You_ were the last person I'd accuse of stealing my battleship, Lex. Much less dismantling it," Xigbar laughed.

"Blame Zexion. I didn't ask for a not-birthday present." Despite his words, Lexaeus couldn't help grinning around at the interior of his new ship.

"Like hell you didn't," Xaldin chuckled. "The kitchen was smoking for hours, and you weren't even there to see your cake."

He shook his head deeply. "What a tragedy."

"Told you he skipped out on us," Xigbar remarked. "How was your vacation, journeyman?"

"I'm not a journeyman, Xigbar."

"Oh, whatever. You're close enough, I guess."

"Zexion's been waiting for you to come back. He wanted to know how his new _baby_ is doing," Xaldin said, grinning expectedly at Xigbar, who rolled his eye.

"That thing certainly has two parents," he grumbled.

"Where is he then? I certainly don't want to tell him I crashed it." Lexaeus asked, smiling slightly.

II and III blinked at the intercom, before promptly bursting out laughing. "Hoo, you definitely don't want to know where he is then!" Xigbar said, before barking with laughter again.

Xaldin shook his head sympathetically. "You crashed it."

"Zexion _did_ send me on vacation to the encroaching edges of darkness."

"True. Well, he and Vexen are with the Oblivion Neophytes, checking out guess-where," the Whirlwind Lancer ran a gloved hand over the namesake in his lap, spotting a scratch on the blade. "You can probably still catch them if you set your course now."

"Will do," V nodded, typing Castle Oblivion's coordinates into the engines.

"What a vacation," Xigbar said, crossing his arms and shaking his head. "You crash and spend a week putting it back together. And here we all thought you were kicking your feet up on a beach somewhere."

Lexaeus shrugged. "It wasn't that bad. It was a very nice world."

"Hmm," Xaldin muttered. "Almost a shame it'll be swallowed up by darkness soon."

Something inside twanged then, like a wire being pulled too tight. That was odd. Maybe he'd ask Vexen about it. "I'll see you two soon then.

"And for goodness' sake Xigbar, clean yourself _off_ the next time something spits ash at you."

"That's what _I_ said."

---

Castle Oblivion was situated on a world they had never cared to name. By extension, the entire planet _could_ be called Castle Oblivion, but it didn't seem very appropriate to call the rolling green fields with its patches of lush trees 'oblivion'. There was just the one area, where the entire planet caved in on itself, that was of the proper amount of nihilism to build a castle.

They had built their second headquarters there to investigate what had caused the hole in the planet in the first place. It rotated between the Realm of Darkness and the Realm of Light, much like their own world and the place called Twilight Town.

Lexaeus landed in the lowest level of the castle, thirteen stories below the cliff. He was walking down the hallway that lead away from the gummi bay when he saw a flicker of light out of the corner of his eye. For a second, he considered a lightspot formation. The strange things popped up almost everywhere. One even had the habit of showing up and disappearing again at the Alter of Naught.

It certainly _looked_ like a lightspot. Lexaeus tilted his head at the glow in at the end of the hallway. It definitely wasn't a trick of the light. But there was something different. For one thing, this lightspot was making a noise.

It was a quiet shuffling sound, like the sound paper made when drifting through the air. It was definitely the right shade of pale gold and the right amount of brightness, he observed as he knelt down beside it.

The light thickened and gathered. It started moving like smoke in reverse. And now the smoke was flattening out in sheets. The shuffling sound faded into the sound of waves on a shore, as the core of the light dulled. It started to spread out and take on an oddly… _human _shape. Seconds past and the dull gold solidified and became hair, the rest of it skin. The flattened smoke had become a white cloth that _the_ _girl _now clung to as if for life.

The sound of waves gave out to the din of rapid breathing. Her eyelids flickered over the tiles she was hunched over, sky blue eyes panicked. She met his eyes briefly and she attempted to jolt away or stand up. Her lack of proper air flow prevented her from doing anything.

"_Breathe,_" he told her.

She tried, sucking air in through clenched teeth, but after a couple of seconds, her eyes started to roll.

That was when he scooped her up (she was insanely light) and started running. He wasn't sure how many floors he had to portal through before finding Zexion and Vexen, standing in one of the labs, unloading devices onto the shelves. Zexion had turned and opened his mouth before Lexaeus had interrupted: "She's not breathing."

A second. "What?"

Lexaeus's legs carried him to a clear table and his arms moved to put the girl down. She couldn't stop twitching all over. "What in the world-?" "Who-?"

"Zexion, you need to put her to sleep. _Now._"

The Schemer was by his side in two seconds, one hand on the girl's forehead, the other on her collarbone. Her eyes shot open and she struggled against the contact feebly, her hands shooting up and clenching the Nobody's arm. Wispy whimpering sounds escaped from her throat but, as Zexion's fingers shone blue-black, her eyelids flickered into sleep. Her struggling stilled and her breaths lengthened.

Vexen pried her hands off of Zexion's arm, and set them down on the table. The three of them looked around at one another, visibly shaken and confused. The girl dozed, breathing deeply and fully.

"So Lexaeus, how was your vacation?" Vexen asked, a wide smirk spreading over his face.

"I need to sit down, that's how my vacation was," he responded, sitting on one of the wooden packing crates littered around the room. He rubbed his palm into his eyelids.

"Evidently, I am a bad vacation planner," he heard Zexion say.

"Yes. You are."

He could hear Vexen teasing laugh before he laughed it and see Zexion's good-natured cringe without seeing it.

He was home.

---

"So she _is _a Nobody, then?"

"Without a doubt. No pulse – no heart."

The girl scribbled at a blank piece of paper with one of Vexen's pens across the room, lying on the white tiles in a pool of sunlight. She was dressed in one of Larxene's smallest sweaters and pants, both many times too big. Marluxia sat close by, able to listen to the discussion and watch her at the same time.

Larxene folded her arms. "But she doesn't even remember her name?"

"As far as I can tell, her mind is completely blank save for the basic knowledge a fourteen-year-old girl would have. She knows fundamental concepts in math and science. She knows some natural features, like what a tree or a lake is," Zexion explained. "I can't pry into memories – my powers don't allow that – but she doesn't have any thoughts concerning a specific world or even any other people."

"If she doesn't remember a name, how can we give her a new one?" Axel asked.

"It's best that we wait and see if it comes around. It took Saïx a couple of days to remember his original name. In the mean time, we've been calling her Zero," Vexen answered.

"That's _Miss_ Zero," Marluxia corrected from his chair. He turned and grinned at the girl. "Isn't that right?"

The girl blushed but kept her eyes on the paper. Larxene scoffed (Axel grinned at that), and continued, "Why not Thirteen? She's a Nobody. What reason is there for her not to join the club?"

"Because she's different than any other Nobody," Lexaeus spoke up for the first time. He watched the girl intently, as if trying to pinpoint something. "When she formed, she was surrounded with light. Every other one of our members were formed in shadows. Besides that, there's the issue of her memories, as Zexion said."

Vexen nodded, holding his chin in thought. "We'll never know the reasons behind these exceptions if we don't study her more closely. If we go tossing her into battle we may never get the opportunity."

"Her fate is for the Superior to decide, Vexen," Marluxia said, looking at them all from the corner of his eye. "Don't tell me you need reminding?"

Vexen scowled at that, and Larxene walked over to Axel's spot on the windowsill. The ensuing whispers between them no doubt held new jabs at the Chilly Academic. This became especially apparent when Axel managed to coax a harsh giggle out of the Nymph.

Zexion rolled his eyes and walked up beside Lexaeus. "Something's bothering you," he said.

"You've had déjà vu before, haven't you?" The Hero asked. He couldn't stop watching the girl in the too-big sweater doodle on the paper.

"Of course," Zexion looked up from underneath his bangs. "But do you mean regular déjà vu, or the Somebody induced variety?"

"The latter," he responded.

"Five, if you have some sort of theory regarding our Miss Zero, I suggest sharing it with us," Marluxia said, smiling over the back of his chair.

"It's not exactly a sharing theory," he said, stepping forward. "More of a showing."

Marluxia only gestured towards the blonde Nobody on the floor, allowing him to continue.

Lexaeus walked up next to the girl and crouched. She looked up obediently, traces of what she knew as fear and nervousness in her eyes. "Miss Zero, may I ask you to stand?"

She nodded and obeyed, rolling her sleeves up only to have them fall back down. She watched as he walked around her, standing to her left. "Now, stand completely still, and hang on to me."

She squeaked when he scooped her up and balanced her on one of his broad shoulders. He held onto her, her legs dangling down his side as though his shoulder was only a tree branch. He addressed Vexen and Zexion. "Does this look familiar to you?"

The sunlight coming through the window _ambered. Had the girl been a little younger, shorter, her arms would've wrapped around his forehead for support and her legs wouldn't dangle down so long. Her feet would be smaller, but she'd still be barefoot, especially out in the castle courtyard as they were. Her hair would be shorter, redder, and her eyes would have a touch of purple in them, and he would be smiling of course, and his hair would be a little different, and there _certainly wouldn't be an 'x' in his name.

Zexion and Vexen were looking at 'Miss Zero' as if Lexaeus had brought her into their lives all over again.

"Impossible…" Vexen said.

"The Princess," said Zexion.

---

"Let me get this straight," Xaldin rubbed the bridge between his eyes. "Princess Kairi is alive?"

Xemnas's hands were steepled in front of his face. "My Other never intended to kill her. He cast her out to the Worlds in hope that her connection to the keyblade would lead him to a Wielder."

"Speaking of which, Superior: _keyblades_ exist? The Mouse King was always spouting legends."

"Roxas wields at least one. Axel reported that the boy can use two, but he hasn't been able to bring one into its full power yet," the Superior explained.

"This is what you get for avoiding home sweet home, Xaldin," Xigbar teased, rocking back on the hind legs of his chair. He pointed at his only eye. "Would've been able to see the whole thing if you'd tagged along."

"For goodness sake, Xigbar, I thought you kicked that habit in your first life." Zexion narrowed his eyes at him.

The Freeshooter laughed, dropping the legs of his chair to the floor. "Sorry kiddo. Didn't know you cared."

While Where Nothing Gathers was the current meeting place of the Organization, it had not always been that way. Back in the days of Organization VI, they had stumbled upon the castle, eerie, empty, and waiting for them. There had been six bedrooms, a kitchen, a lab. And there was a meeting room, with a table and six chairs. They had started calling it the Room of Ill-Stared Hexes, because it seemed appropriate. All those years passed and they still met here to discuss things away from the Neophytes.

"And how exactly did you manage to 'see' all this, Xigbar?" Vexen asked, tapping away at his keyboard. The monitor was detached and suspended in mid-air, floating at eye level. When he looked across the table, the semi-transparent screen followed him. Xigbar grinned through the words of the report at him, eager to explain, but Zexion interrupted coolly.

"Using a combination of Number Two's, Ten's, and my own powers, we were able to create a kind of 'scrying portal' into the events of the past."

Vexen typed away and Xigbar continued. "Turns out that Maleficent witch we'd been watching had made an artificial keyblade from six of the Princess' Hearts. Only this one unlocks hearts, not Keyholes.

"And the Keyblade Wielder, this Sora kid, somehow got his heart mixed up with little ol' Kairi's. So he released her heart _and_ his when he stabbed himself through with it—"

Lexaeus frowned. "He stabbed himself?"

Xigbar laughed. "Did I not mention that?"

The sound echoed oddly around the room. He'd have to investigate that later – probably something in the architecture. An old quote about laying down one's life for the life of a friend floated by in his mind. Xaldin was speaking again.

"So Roxas and Naminé were created on the same day, and were released from the same body," he pondered. "No wonder she doesn't have the same eyes as the Princess."

"_Nearly_ the same," Zexion noted.

"Is that the name we've decided on, by the way? Naminé?" Vexen asked.

"Ansem the Wise named his daughter after the ocean. Since Naminé is only a part of her it makes sense that she be named after a wave," Xaldin replied.

"Her powers?" Lexaeus asked.

"Unknown, as of right now," Zexion said. "Due to her unusual birth, she might not have any."

"Or she may have more than the rest of us," Xemnas guessed.

There was silence until Xigbar leaned across the table, addressing Xaldin. "You get to meet the kids today, right?"

"Third day after their arrival, so yes. Maybe I'll be able to prod something out of them."

"You're certainly terrifying enough to manage it," Zexion quipped, leaning his chin on his knuckles. There was faint laughter around the table. Xaldin snorted, annoyed. Xemnas cracked a smile before concluding the meeting. Vexen's computer sank into the table and the Originals stood, ready to leave. The Superior left with some parting words.

"Remember though: Roxas is not to know of Naminé. They may prove to be too valuable to us on their own. Placing them together may lead to our undoing."

---

"My name is Lexaeus, Number Five of the Organization. I can control the element of Earth and use a tomahawk as my weapon." He pressed his fingers together and looked down on her. "Do you have any questions about me?"

Naminé shook her head.

"Nothing at all you're curious about?" He pulled up a chair at her long table and sat. It creaked softly under his girth.

Two days after the meeting, five days after Roxas and Naminé had moved into the castle. He had met and sparred with Roxas earlier that morning, and was now in the aptly titled White Room. The girl's domain.

She looked down at the hem of the white dress Xigbar had managed to commission for her (he and Xaldin always wondered how this 'Edna Mode' put up with Number II's haphazard visits). "I have one."

He nodded to indicate she could continue. "Why does everyone keep mentioning a Princess Kairi? Is she my Other?"

"Has no one told you that?"

She frowned thoughtfully. "Well, Superior told me about the Apprentices. Then Two told me about weapons. And Three tried to help me figure out elements—"

"So, no."

She shook her head demurely. Somewhere, in another place, her Other would've shaken her head so hard it would've tossed red hair into her eyes. How different people could be.

"Kairi was the daughter of Ansem the Wise, the man the Apprentices served under, as you already know. She was a Princess of Heart, one of seven girls in all the Worlds born without darkness in their hearts. When Xehanort became a Heartless, he destroyed the girl's memories and cast the Princess out into the Worlds in order to find the Keyblade Wielder."

The more he talked the more it felt like tripwires were being set off inside. It had never been difficult to say things like this out loud before, but this was to a girl who shared the face of the innocent.

"Do you mean Roxas?" She asked, her eyes shining.

He smiled and shook his head. She was forming a curious connection to the boy already.

She nodded, understanding. "I don't suppose that'll give me a lot of options when it comes to elements."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, if Kairi didn't have any darkness in her heart, I _could_ have Light. But, um, Xaldin said that Roxas controls that."

"Don't underestimate yourself," he said. "Your powers will reveal themselves in time, and they'll continue to long after you discover them."

She leaned forward. "You think so?"

"I know so. Everyone's powers continue to change and grow. Demyx only perfected his clones a couple of months ago. But you'll learn about that later."

"Even your powers?"

He thought on that. When he had sat on top of a hill with the sun setting and a human next to him, he had thought he had heard chimes in the wind. Xaldin had never described hearing the legendary Voice of the Wind. And everything about that particular world, from the giant trees to the red soil on Nakoma's feet breathed Earth. Why had _he _heard something? "Perhaps."

She frowned, intrigued. "You don't think your powers can grow?"

"Stone isn't a flexible element, Naminé."

"But you think they _might_ grow?"

Lexaeus shook his head. "You are more like the Princess than I first thought. Again, my answer is perhaps."

"I'm sorry. It's just – Vexen said that you were a scientist – and I thought you'd like to investigate. But," she shrugged, eyes downcast, "I shouldn't jump to conclusions or…"

He opened his mouth to reply to that and shut it again.

_Oh, damn it._

He sighed. "No, Naminé, you're right. I _will _have to look into it. But for now, what would you like me to teach you?"

She leaned back in her chair. "Would you mind if you taught me what Lesser Nobodies are? I haven't really met any before."

Lexaeus cast a look up to the ceiling. Too low. He opened a portal behind him. "Of course. We'll have to go outside."

She nodded, pushing herself off the chair. They stepped through it into the open air of the courtyard. She rubbed her arms, and he remembered how long it had taken him to get used to the cold in the corridors of darkness. He sent out a silent call for Gayn and Qaf. Naminé shuffled her feet but remained silent.

Eventually the two Geomancers emerged from the North wall of the courtyard, towering high over his head. Their limbs creaked as they moved, like the giant pillars of stone they resembled. The girl shrank into his side. "Are these trees?"

"No, but they're certainly big enough to be," he replied.

Over the next couple of hours, teaching Naminé how to speak in the Lesser-Whispers, the thought of returning to the world with chimes in the wind became more and more prevalent.

If Vexen didn't know the reason behind his snapping, echoing insides, maybe he could find it there.

* * *

**AN. **L-Lexaeus is kind of my fictional husband. At least my muse husband. He doesn't ever leave. He just waits. ;_; I'm sorry this took so long, you guys.


	4. The Voice of the Mountain

I do not own _Kingdom Hearts _or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.

_**Ships:**_ (ggg romance) Lexaeus/Nakoma  
_**Warnings:**_ the return of fantasy violence!  
_**Notes:**_ Takes place in that inevitable space of time before the last world where Sora & Company go on a lot of sidequests.

* * *

_**Beating Drum Heart**_**  
Chapter 4: The Voice of the Mountain**

_Hearts break, hearts mend__  
Love still hurts  
__Visions clash, planes crash__  
Still there's talk of  
Saving souls; still, the cold  
Is closing in on us  
_~ "World on Fire", Sarah McLachlan

* * *

He didn't know why he had heard something in the wind. Of course it had been the earth that was calling to him. It pounded beneath him, a solid block of colour and sound. It rested in his head like a stone in his hand, thudding against the hollow in his chest. It sounded like a drum.

There was a secondary beat here, too. It was softer, quieter and he could barely notice it. Eventually, it seemed to disappear, falling into synch with the earth beneath.

He wasn't sure how much time passed when the wind blew by, carrying the sound of chimes in it, as though signalling the end of a session. He struggled to open his eyes, not entirely wanting to leave the trance. With a deep sigh, he succeeded.

Nakoma was kneeling not far away. He found he wasn't entirely shocked to see her. It looked like she belonged there. The tear marks on her face were another story.

She raised her head, looking imploringly at him. "Am I crazy?" she asked.

He narrowed his eyes. The thought of mental instability had never once entered his mind around a Somebody so balanced. "You are one the sanest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting."

She nodded quietly. She didn't seem to believe him.

"Stand," he said. "You can tell me when we return to the ship."

---

"Nakoma, how long has it been since we met?" Lexaeus placed the teakettle on the fire. The sun set had set quickly on their way back to the clearing. Everything beyond the warm circle of light was quickly overtaken by the navy blue cowl of midnight. She sat like she had on the night they first met, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Hmm. I think the moon has gone her course at least once since you've gone. Why?"

"One moon?" Lexaeus looked up to the sky. The white crescent curved over the trees to his left. "It seems like a lot longer."

"Are you making tea?" Nakoma asked, leaning forward a little. "The people down by the salt water drink that too."

"The salt water?" He sat across from her, folding his legs. "There are people other than you living here?"

She nodded. "After John Smith and his people returned to their home, some of their people came back and settled here. Pocahontas makes sure we get along with them, but the warriors aren't so sure." Nakoma smiled into the fire. "I like them. Some of my people think that they are too different from us. They are, I guess, but they're very nice people all the same."

"Nakoma, I'm sorry to interrupt, but – what are you doing out here? What answers are you looking for this time?"

"Well…" She laced her fingers together. "It's sort of a roundabout vision quest. I've been having really vivid dreams lately, and I've been trying to find out what they mean. But now I'm not sure which are visions from the quest and which are dreams."

He tilted his head towards her. "Dreams are why someone called you crazy?"

She shook her head hastily. "No, that was stupid for me to say. No one called me crazy. I was just – scared."

Lexaeus frowned, drawing himself up. He remembered how close this world was to the darkness. "Why are you scared?"

She took in his face, hesitant to speak, but still trusting. A twig in the fire snapped. "Lexaeus…"

Then she laughed. She shook her head and grinned into her kneecaps. "Don't take me so seriously! I'm just trying to become more in touch with the spirits. The dreams will probably pass soon."

"How many vision quests have you been out here looking since I last saw you?" He said falteringly. "If you need to fast each time, then-"

"I'm eating fine," she interrupted quietly. The fire burned in her small eyes. She laughed once. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you were worried about me."

He drew himself up to his full height now, looking down on her. "So what if I am?"

Nakoma's eyes widened, and she cringed just slightly, looking away. "I'm sorry. That was…disrespectful. Of course, you probably already knew all that."

_Already knew…? _Cold flashed through him. When exactly had he remembered the fact that he was a 'spirit' here? He told himself that it had _definitely _been some point before now.

"It's just… you make me forget, sometimes," she was saying. He looked across the fire at her. She turned back to him gradually, still guarded against the possibility of his anger.

"Forget what?" He lowered his voice to her level without realizing.

"That you're a spirit. I didn't tell you that last time we met, did I?"

He watched her as the teakettle finally started whistling. She only rested her chin on her lower arm. They exchanged smiles.

---

"So what exactly are these dreams like?"

Nakoma lead the way as they trekked down the hill side. The sun was a bright green-blue through the canopy of trees.

"They're… kind of all over the place. They're exciting, but something about them scares me. The first night I was a rabbit. The second night," she frowned over her shoulder, "I was a skunk."

"You _were _a rabbit?" Lexaeus asked. His boots skidded on a patch of mud. Nakoma hadn't faltered when she had passed over it a couple of paces ahead of him. "Are you sure it wasn't a dream with a rabbit _in_ it?"

"No, I was a rabbit. I'm sure of it. I've never been able to run _that_ fast, even in my dreams. And you know what the strange thing is? My friend, Pocahontas – she's always had more vivid dreams than me. But she's never _become_ something. She's the one who kept telling me to come out here looking."

"Well, maybe your dreams have just been waiting to become vivid. Maybe something has triggered them." He had to duck under a tree branch for the fifth time.

"Hm." Her head tilted and she stared at the forest floor. "That's the part that scares me. I'm always running away from something. But I don't know where I'm going either."

"Perhaps you'll find out when we get to wherever it is we're going. And hopefully I'll find out what those chimes in the wind were. Or that drum in the ground."

"You heard them too? Pocahontas calls it the Voice of the Wind, but she's never heard a drum before. And I told you, we're going to see a spirit. An old spirit, who can help both of us find out what's going on."

Lexaeus looked up towards the broken pieces of sky he could see through the branches above him. The sun was still high in the sky. "I certainly hope so."

"You hope? You fly between worlds in a giant… squishy ship. Rocks jump out of the ground when you _want_ them to. What is it that you need help with?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe I've gotten out of touch with the earth. Or maybe I've gotten _into_ touch with this one. And I thought we mentioned this last time," he suddenly found himself watching her hair sway in that odd up-do, "but aren't we friends? You don't need to treat me as a spirit at all times."

"Right. I'm sorry, but it's a little strange for me. Friends with a spirit?"

"This other spirit we're going to now – Grandmother Willow, wasn't it? _She's_ your friend, isn't she?" How did she keep her hair up? Was that an elastic or a hair ribbon? They didn't have elastics here yet, did they?

"Well, I guess. But she's really more of an eld-aaugh!" Nakoma's hand swatted at his hand as he pulled the short stretch of leather ribbon out of her hair. She turned on him, her eyes wide and her hand curling into the hair at the back of her head. Most of it was loose now, sweeping down onto her shoulders.

"Hm. So that's how that works," Lexaeus said.

"You… ngh." Nakoma gnashed her teeth. "You could've just asked!"

She made a leap for the hair ribbon in his hand, the rest of her hair spilling down out of her grip. His arm pulled up, far beyond her reach, like a knee-jerk reaction he'd never been tested for.

She sighed at him before starting to pace around him in a circle. "And I thought I was finished with games like this. Thank goodness you're so short."

"Your hair is longer than I thought it was," he replied, watching her until she went into his blind spot. "You're more sarcastic, too."

"I guess I'm full of surprises?"

"Ye-aaugh!" Lexaeus stumbled as Nakoma_ jumped_ onto his back. He could feel her feet tracking mud down his leather back and her hands gripping at his shoulders. "What in the world—" she kneed him in the lower back and he nearly face planted.

"Climbing you," she answered his unfinished question. "It'd be easier if you didn't move."

He straightened up, and the back of his head nearly collided with her face. He tried to figure out how in the world she was hanging on, but was unable to. "It is absolutely ridiculous how humiliating this."

"Got it!" She threw herself over one of his shoulders, succeeding in grabbing the ribbon from his hand. The shift in weight forced him forward, off the beaten path and down a particularly muddy slope.

He tried to stop, but the forward momentum was carrying his legs down and faster in a terrible wheel. He hated the feeling, his knees and legs moving like pistons that he couldn't control. Nakoma was trying to get a good grip and squeaking and ducking to avoid branches on his back. The feeling of her fingers flashing through his hair wasn't helping. He winked one eye shut to avoid a twig from somewhere, as she elbowed him in the back of the head somehow. When he opened both eyes, he nearly collided with a tree.

The earth gave under his feet, swerving him out of the way. Suddenly, the wind was whipping past him, and his legs weren't raising and falling. Nakoma seemed to realize what was happening at the same time he did, because she started laughing, readjusting herself. Her arms wrapped around his neck and her legs somewhere around his ribcage.

He was riding his own mudslide down the hill.

He suddenly understood what Vexen had meant when he said he 'just knew' how to skim the surface of the snow on his shield in the high mountains. Or what it was like for Xaldin to fly. All he had to do was shift his weight onto one leg, and the earth would take him _that_ way, past those trees and that rock. A hair ribbon whipped past his ear, its owner quiet and content on his back.

He pulled to a stop at a rocky ledge, the stones lifting up to stop his feet short. His head was pulled back as Nakoma hung on only from around his neck, but the she dropped to the ground. He turned around and she was tying her hair back again.

"Now that we're done that little detour, do you think we could maybe get back to the path?" She walked off, completely sure of where she was going even after all that.

"Hm. Pity. I think I liked it down."

She stopped in her tracks and gave him the least amused look she could. She walked backwards until she was standing next to him.

"On second thought, I'll just lead from back here," she said, giving him a wary glare. She was about to step forward, but her knees folded and she sat slowly, balancing on her toes.

"Nakoma?" he asked. He crouched next to her. She looked just as confused about the sudden change as he did. She rubbed her arms as though chilled. "Are you hurt?"

"No, it's—" She rocked back and forth, mouthing out words. "I _feel _something. Something… bad."

There was a quiet snort in the woods. Gold eyes glinted in the shadows. Lexaeus stood.

"Oh, damn it," he said.

This time he was ready for the deer Heartless, caught its antlers in his grip before it was able to catch him in the stomach. It pushed against him, putting all its weight into its charge, but Lexaeus didn't budge.

"Behind you!" Nakoma said, somewhere beyond the circle of battle. Before thinking it through, he turned, starting with his left foot, letting the rest of his body follow. He threw the first Heartless into its charging partner with such a force that both dissolved into black dust.

"It's over now," he said, looking over at her. She shook her head in reply, covering the crown of her head with her hands.

"No. Above."

The earth was an extension of his arm, he thought, he _knew_, and that was all it took for the tomahawk to come to his hand. He raised it to block the Heartless shaped like an eagle that nearly dive-bombed his head. It collided with the steel, flapping helplessly. He reached out and grabbed it by the neck, before tossing it into a tree trunk. It dissipated into the soil.

Nakoma was still crouched in the grass where she had been, but she had stopped rocking back and forth. She looked up at him as he approached, as though he was coming at her out of mist behind her eyes. He crouched down in front of her again, dismissing his tomahawk as he did. "Nakoma. Can you stand?"

She nodded. "Yes. I don't what came over me." She stood up, but reached out to touch his arm for support. "It felt like something from my dreams."

"Then we should keep going. And we should do it quickly."

---

Nakoma parted the curtain of vines, peering up at the late evening sky through the branches. "How long have we been walking?"

"Long enough?" Lexaeus guessed.

The woman shrugged and smiled. "Probably. We're here, anyway."

The wind rustled through the willow's vines loudly. Or at least, that's what made the most sense. The vines didn't sway, but what else could he be hearing? Nakoma was ahead of him, climbing carefully over tree roots that disappeared into a deep blue pond. "I'm here, Grandmother Willow," she was saying. She was the only one speaking.

"Did you hear something?" he asked. He took off his gloves and dismissed them from him, like he had his weapon earlier. It felt odd wearing so much black in this place. He had no idea why.

She climbed up onto a piece of the trunk cut off like a large stump. She kneeled in the middle of it and smirked enigmatically. "I don't know. Did you?"

He stood behind the stump, and leaned his arms against its surface. Nakoma was looking up at a knoll on the trunk, shadowed by the setting sun. "Did I?" he asked her.

Her lips quirked. "Listen again."

He looked up and around. Silence. He did notice that the upper branches of the tree held all manner of animals, watching the two of them patiently. He had a feeling something was supposed to happen, either now or very soon.

He was looking at a bluebird when he heard it again: snatches of words. There was a quiet voice _somewhere_ around this tree, and it wasn't his and it wasn't Nakoma's. He tuned into it.

An old woman's voice. It didn't seem to be coming from any one direction, but from all around them. He couldn't understand the words, but… it went right through him – a feeling of unfeasible familiarity.

The knoll changed into a face.

Lexaeus leaned back, unfolding his arms. Nakoma seemed satisfied, patting the wood next to her. He climbed up next to her, sitting cross-legged. The face in the tree smiled. It was an old woman's face, wise and true. The bark surrounding her face looked like long green hair. "Hello, Spirit-With-No-Drum."

Lexaeus's insides had another flash-freeze. "No drum?" Nakoma asked beside him.

"A thing between spirits, dear. Are you going to introduce me to your charming friend?"

Nakoma shifted slightly as some of the animals crawled down from the branches and came to sit on the stump next to them. She ran her fingers absentmindedly through the fur of a rabbit's. "Lexaeus, this is Grandmother Willow. Grandmother Willow, this is Lexaeus."

"The spirit who helped you on your first vision quest. I see, I see." She nodded, and the trunk moved with her. It was absolutely fascinating. "Well? Have you nothing to say, Lexaeus?"

"Uh…" He wasn't used to being caught off guard. "It's an honour to meet you."

"He and I need your help, Grandmother Willow," Nakoma stepped in.

"Hmm." The tree spirit nodded, the trunk creaking quietly. "I've heard. All the forest has been telling me of your wanderings. And I'll speak to you about that in a moment. But what is it that you need, Brother Spirit?"

Lexaeus thought, recovering from his shock. How to word this? "I'm not entirely sure if this is correct, but I believe something on your world is calling to me. Something that stays with me even after I've left."

"Hm. I'm afraid you've come a long way in order for me to tell you something you probably already know," she said softly. "Nobody ever knows exactly why some spirits are pulled towards certain worlds. Perhaps you were born here in a past life?"

Lexaeus chuckled. "I somehow doubt that." He cast a glance over his shoulder, where Grandmother Willow's branches spread out over her pond. "I would've liked to, though."

"Have you thought about the idea that it might be Mother Earth calling to you?"

Mother Earth… The Heart of the World would be more accurate. He shook his head slowly. "Possible. But like you said, nobody knows for sure."

Nakoma laughed at him. "Now the tables are turned, aren't they? You're the one asking all the questions, and getting answers you already know."

"Ha." He looked at her, brow furrowed, smiling. "I guess so."

"And what about you, child? Why haven't you come to see me sooner?" Grandmother Willow asked.

Nakoma's smile faded and she rocked from knee to knee. "I was trying to figure it out myself, Grandmother Willow."

The spirit made a sound like wooden rhythm blocks, and then Lexaeus realized she was _clicking her tongue. _"You've always kept things bottled up, Nakoma," she said sternly.

Nakoma flushed and looked at the pattern of rings in the stump. "I know."

"Well, tell me what you've found out so far." If she was human, Lexaeus could imagine the spirit sitting down and getting comfortable. The whole tree seemed to sigh. "You've been having dreams, haven't you?"

Nakoma nodded. "In all my dreams, I never seem to be able to see where I'm going. All I know is… is what I feel. I know the forest is dark and cool, so I know it's night-time." Nakoma started counting out on her fingers. "I know the feel of the ground beneath my feet. And I know I'm not me anymore because I can _feel _that I'm a rabbit or – a coyote. And sometimes I'm even an owl, but I _still_ can't see what's in front of me. Or what I'm running away from.

"I asked Pocahontas about it, because I know she's been able to call spirits to her aide before, and she told me to come out here. How is she, by the way? Have you seen her?"

Grandmother Willow chuckled deeply. "Oh, she's doing much better. She's actually come out here asking about _you_. She wanted to go out looking for you, but I told her to wait. I told her you'd come back with news."

"And _what _news am I bringing back?" she asked. Lexaeus could hear her nervousness mix with anticipation.

"It's something I've been thinking about for a very long time. Now, how long have you and Pocahontas known each other, Nakoma?"

"Oh." Nakoma looked at the rabbit that had climbed up into her lap. "As long as I can remember, I suppose."

The tree spirit smiled widely. "That's what I thought. Let me tell you a story."

The animals and birds in the branches reacted instantly, all twittering and fluttering about. Lexaeus nearly clubbed a cardinal out of the air when it started circling his head in wide circles.

"Quiet!" Grandmother Willow shouted. "_Quiet!_"

All the animals and Nakoma flinched. Lexaeus observed this all, spellbound. "Huh," he said, smiling widely.

The tree spirit gave him a pointed glance. He cleared his throat. Nakoma laughed.

"Now, as I was saying…

"A long time ago, a farmer planted two seeds in his field. He kept them far away from the shade at the edges of his field, and he felt sure that both would grow tall and strong in the sunlight.

"Despite his best efforts, only one seed grew. It grew taller and taller until it could see everything. It could see past her farmer's field and into the whole village.

"One day, the farmer asked the plant, 'Why won't your sister grow? I have given her water, she has plenty of food. But she doesn't want to come up and see the sun. Is something the matter?'

"The plant replied, 'My sister _does_ grow, and she _does_ want to see the sun. But she needs something to pull her up from the soil. And once she does, she will be able to see as far as I can.'

"The farmer thought on this for many days. He decided that he would move the other seed. With the shaman's advice and help, they moved the smaller seed closer to the shade of the forest.

"The farmer watched in amazement as the seed grew faster in the gloom. Her sister had been right: the seed had been growing underneath the ground and simply needed the shadows of the forest to start her climb. In a couple of short days, the two plants stood tall in the field, and were able to see the whole village."

The story ended, and there was quiet beneath the willow branches. 'The shade of the forest.' Lexaeus realized slowly that he didn't like where this was going at all.

"So, Pocahontas is the seed in the sun. I'm the seed in the shade." Nakoma didn't sound excited or nervous now – just solemn and pensive. "What shade? Where is it coming from?"

"I don't know child, but I feel it in my roots. What ever happened with that black elk you mentioned last time?" The tree spirit looked around as if daring one to appear.

"Lexaeus and I did come across more of those creatures on our way here," Nakoma pointed out.

He nodded. "There was a new one shaped like an eagle."

Grandmother Willow thought for a long time. "Then those creatures must be the thing that's drawing your link to the spirits out, Nakoma. But I don't think your link is quite the same as Pocahontas's. She _sees_ the things in her dreams. You said that you can feel what's happening more clearly?"

"That's right."

"Then we'll have a lot to talk about. You should get to sleep, child."

Nakoma's mouth dropped open. "But… the sun only set a couple of hours ago. Shouldn't we—"

"You need to sleep, child. Especially considering all the growing the second seed did in so few days."

The woman sighed quietly and stood, following a ridge in the bark to their right. From there she started climbing up the trunk quickly and efficiently, until settling on a high branch. "Good night, Grandmother Willow. Good night, Lexaeus."

"Good night, child." Lexaeus looked on in fascination as Nakoma curled up against the trunk to prepare to drift into sleep. "And you, Spirit-With-No-Drum."

He looked back to the great tree spirit. She looked deathly serious. "We're going to need to talk, young man."

---

Days past. The shadows got longer, Nakoma continued to dream, and Lexaeus taught her how to meditate the way he had been meditating: how to open up your chest like a door and let everything flow through you.

The tree spirit kept a close eye on him. She knew that he had no heart, no 'drum'. She probably suspected the same thing he did. If he were to follow protocols, he'd allow this world to crumble and try to figure out how to hotwire a Nobody into the system of hearts and connections. It was something the Organization had allowed to happen countless times before. And would continue to do.

Nakoma, they learned, had a link to the spirits similar to the ancient shape shifters, the shamans who were able to turn into animals in the legends. But Grandmother Willow explained that it wasn't their bodies that had changed, but their minds – their souls, perhaps. When a shaman became an eagle, he gained the divinity and sight of an eagle, not the body of one.

Nakoma channelled the spirits of the forest most easily when she dreamed. On nights when she remained still in sleep, they figured she channelled the spirit of a rock or a tree. But most nights, she sleepwalked. Grandmother Willow said that one of her owls had seen Nakoma sleepwalk for many nights before he had arrived and had kept her out of trouble.

But she was getting better at channelling when she was awake too, thanks to his lessons of opening her heart to all the spirits around her. Unfortunately, he deadpanned, she seemed to be a little too open, as one day she went about the forest inexplicably smelling like a skunk. He tried to find some extrinsic explanation to it, but had rocks thrown very precisely at his head before he could. Then his specimen would leave to another part of the forest to meditate.

Despite her day-long hiatus, she stayed close to him. He was… glad. He found it easier to tap into the drum beat beneath the earth with her around. It made the blood pump through his own idle veins to hear what might've been the Heart of the World beating far below him, keeping the lifeblood of the little blue-green-brown planet moving.

And yet something twisted uncomfortably in him when he thought he noticed the heart palpitating faster as the days past. The World was preparing itself for battle. If only the rest of its inhabitants might do the same. It was Nakoma that kept this thought far away from him.

He liked how she managed to work sarcastic jabs into the day, even if neither of them spoke very often. They spent hours alternating between going into trances and walking beneath the green shadows of the trees. He gave her vague stories of his own world, tales of Xigbar and Saïx without names. She never asked for names, and she never gave them in her own tales. She shoved him in the elbow when he said something that made her laugh because she couldn't reach his shoulder.

On the fifth day, Nakoma confided something in him, probably because she could feel scraps of his death experience. She knew for sure now that he was a spirit, and that he couldn't tell any other human.

She told him of the night that had started to unravel Pocahontas from John Smith, the man she loved and now grieved for. She told him about the princess running out to meet him under Grandmother Willow's own branches, how she had sent the brave warrior named Kocoum out after her in concern of her safety. And how somewhere deep inside, Nakoma had guilt in her that she refused to burden anyone with. Guilt that was burrowing deeper into her heart.

After that, it became slightly easier to decipher the words she sometimes murmured in her sleep, up in the willow branches.

On the sixth night, as he followed Nakoma as she sleep-walked, he came to an interesting conclusion.

Why not let her wallow in her guilt? Why not he let her heart collapse into the oncoming darkness? Her heart was strong - very strong. She would make a good Dusk. And good Dusks could become other Nobodies. She could be a good Geomancer. A good Lam.

It was an incredibly intriguing possibility. Her shoulder bumped into a tree up ahead. She moved out of the way and kept walking.

The day came and past. On the seventh sunrise, he found her asleep in a clearing, sitting cross-legged. Lexaeus touched the crown of her head on his way to the other end of the clearing. She woke up.

She looked around and then back to him as he settled opposite her, in the same position. "I sleepwalked again, didn't I?"

"No, of course you didn't," he replied.

She snorted at him. "Ooh, sarcasm. Any idea what I might've been dreaming about?"

Lexaeus shook his head. "I just found you now. You don't remember?"

"Not at the moment. Maybe I should try and find out." Her hands folded in her lap and she closed her eyes. He could almost hear her think the mantra out loud: _Open your chest, open your heart._

Lexaeus wasn't as flashy about summoning heartless as say, Saïx or Luxord might be. They liked to snap their fingers and get instant results. Lexaeus summoned one Shadow by calling out with his mind.

Her heart had already been needlessly darkened by guilt. All she needed was a push.

He felt oddly detached from the entire scene as the Shadow melted into the grass and climbed over her legs and up to her chest and disappeared inside. Nakoma gasped for air, her eyes shooting open. She clutched at her chest with one hand and ripped weakly at the grass with her other. She heaved and her eyes flashed yellow.

He stood and approached her almost relaxedly. She had been a great help to him on his first visit here. He was almost positive she would be a great Lam, he thought as he stood over her. Normally this took longer, but she was apparently putting up a good internal struggle.

She reached up and clutched at his hand. "Lexaeus… Help me."

Something wound up his arm and settled in the hollow of his chest. It was warm and light and all his thoughts halted. Maybe it was something to do with her affinity to the spirits. Maybe it was something else entirely.

This was wrong.

_Traitor, traitor, __**traitor.**_ _You've entangled yourself too deeply here. Sever your ties to her. You've made your decision, you can't go back._

He wasn't sure what part of him was speaking, but he ignored it. His bare fingers closed around hers and he crouched down beside her. "Nakoma. Channel _me._"

The dark brown in her eyes fought against the yellow, and her trembling body leaned against him. She gritted her teeth and something inside him left, called outside himself into her.

Her breathing steadied but parts of her eyes smouldered dull gold. She still leaned against him but her feet kicked against the forest floor, trying to stand up. He stood, carrying her up with him. She cupped her temple in her hand and closed her eyes.

Her shadow leaked out into the grass. It looked like a malformed rabbit – caught between the Shadow that had attacked her and pieces of her own heart's darkness. It attempted to hop away with a twisted back leg when Nakoma surprised him by striding away from the support of his arm. She moved surely towards it and it twitched frantically.

Nakoma crushed it under her foot. Lexaeus felt vibrations through the soles of his boots.

She turned to him. "Spirit magic is kind of messed up."

"You can say that again." She stumbled back towards the steady hold of his arm. "Are you alright?"

She nodded into his elbow. "You have a spirit like a bear."

"Nakoma, look at me." He had to force her chin up with his hand. The aching inside his ribcage lessened when he saw the dark brown of her eyes. "Are you alright?"

She nodded up at him, eyes half-lidded. "It's like it was your fault, you know. We were both meditating right?"

He felt his shoulders fall. He commanded his fingers to leave her face. She tilted her head. "Lexaeus?"

He looked away. Chimes blew in the wind. She didn't move away from him, but turned her head sharply towards the brush at edge of the clearing.

"Kocoum had a spirit like yours, I think. Like a bear." Nakoma walked towards the edge of the clearing. Her eyes shone strangely.

"Nakoma." She only stared back at him quietly. She was sorting out what had happened and he need to delay that. "What are you feeling?" He followed after her.

"He wants us to follow him. It's important."

---

They were climbing. The trees had started thinning ten minutes ago and now they were surrounded by slate blue rock. Nakoma followed the spirit he couldn't see up and up, and he followed after her.

In a lot of ways, it was like the walk a week ago. He could reach out and take her hair ribbon again. But…

What was it that had stopped him? It wasn't remorse he was feeling – he couldn't feel anything at all. He had lost his opportunity to create a wonderful Geomancer, a powerful Heartless. Nakoma had freed herself of her guilt, and it was his own fault.

Yet there was some string of logic that told him that it wasn't a fault. That helping her protect herself was something so indescribable that he could never dream of fully understanding it.

He struggled with the idea of not knowing. Especially when it came to her.

"Lexaeus?" she said. He lifted his head and saw they had come to a cliff, over which the forest stretched out before them until meeting the horizon. The pale blue sea dominated the world to their right. Her fingers were tangled up in each other. She hadn't been nervous around him for a while now.

No. She was nervous _for _him. He wondered why.

"You seem…" She couldn't say exactly say 'quiet'. They both smiled as they realized this.

"I'm fine, Nakoma."

They looked out to the sea, away from each other. They both seemed to shiver.

"Nakoma. Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

She nodded. "Clouds. _Strange _clouds."

A gust of wind blew past them, bringing the black storm clouds closer to the settler's village by the saltwater. "It looks like the ship that John Smith came here on."

"Ship?" he asked. He was careful not to go to close to the ledge, but he had to peer closer. There _was_ a ship amidst the storm front, tall masts and giant white sails. There was something eerie about that sight by itself, but what really disturbed him was that the clouds showed no signs of violence – no lightning danced up in the sky.

"Nakoma, how was it that John Smith was injured again?"

"He was shot by a man when he saved Chief Powhatan's life. A man wearing black armour."

"Did he have darkness in his heart?"

"Yes, the soldiers said that he was a very greedy man. That ship… You don't think it's…"

"What do _you_ think? The darkness." He turned to head back down the mountain. He wasn't entirely sure where he was going. Away.

"Hey, wait! We can't just walk away from this. We have to do something." She caught up easily; her bare feet prevented her from slipping down the cliffside. She cut him off and glared up at him. The top of her head came up to the bottom of his ribcage.

"Correction: _you_ have to do something, Nakoma. I do not belong here." He pushed her aside (gently) and continued walking.

She didn't start moving after him for a long time. He almost prayed that she would follow, but a stubbornness in him refused to stop and wait. Her voice was hushed. "I talked to Grandmother Willow about you. You're like a puzzle in reverse."

Flashes of Ienzo and wrapping paper and five-thousand pieces in a box. He was still walking.

"Usually, a puzzle's something simple made up of a lot of little detailed things once you break it down. But you're different.

"At first you were this spirit I couldn't ever understand. And now you're just pieces."

His feet bonded to the earth. His element seemed to be controlling _him _now. The trees were thicker here. He was off the mountain.

"You're simple now. You're just like me. We're made of the same pieces."

Silence beat heavy on his ear drums, on his rib cage, on his knee caps and shoulder blades. He was so caught up in it that he nearly didn't realize that she had come to stand beside him.

"When I channel, I think I take a puzzle piece away with me. I know you want to help me, but you feel you can't."

"I can't feel," he said before he could stop. It was a knee-jerk reaction, like pulling your arm away when someone goes to grab at something you stole.

She smiled up at him, not understanding. "Do what you feel is right, Lexaeus."

And he looked down at her in the forest as the sun finished rising. And impossibly he said, "We need to move quickly."

* * *

**AN. **Longest chapter yet! I think this'll be the longest one period, but the fifth might surprise me. Hopefully I'll be able to end this fic before the start of Lex month!


	5. Heroism

I do not own _Kingdom Hearts _or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.

_**Ships:**_ (truly I am insane romance) Lexaeus/Nakoma  
_**Warnings:**_ Fantasy violence!  
_**Notes:**_ Takes place as Sora & Company travel through and complete the End of the World.

* * *

_**Beating Drum Heart**_**  
Chapter 5: Heroism**

_Silence is more musical than any song._  
~ Christina Rossetti

* * *

"We should probably find Kekata first. He'll know where Pocahontas and Chief Powhatan are."

The sun had climbed fully into the sky as Nakoma led him out the forest. They raced down a hill high above a blue river. A fraction of the sky was stained black by the oncoming storm of darkness, but no thunder rumbled.

Lexaeus was dimly aware of passing cultivated fields and people who called his companion's name, but he was concentrating on not crashing into her should his boots slip again.

So instead, he commanded the ground beneath him to collapse, and he slipped down the mud until he came up beside Nakoma. He stretched out an arm. "Climb on," he said.

He didn't have time to be embarrassed as she braced herself against his arm and climbed up onto his shoulder, positioning herself onto his back as easily as if she had foot holes. "Head towards the circle of totem poles. He's usually around there."

At the bottom of the hill, several golden brown huts lay in the sunlight, clustered close together in-between fields and rounded gathering places. There was one he could see clearly, as he raced towards level ground. It was marked with four wooden totem poles, a fire burning dimly in the center. Red smoke rose from it, and he thought he could see shapes moving within the cloud.

As the land levelled out, they came within the inner perimeter of the village. Lexaeus took a tight curve around a couple of huts, faces of strangers blurring in his vision, then skidded to a quick stop under the red smoke cloud.

Nakoma jumped down from his back and headed closer to the fire. She started speaking to a man with flowing white hair and long robes. But he was distracted by the smoke.

Shapes _were _moving inside it. Images made of thickly coloured tendrils of smoke curled around each other. A bear and a rabbit followed one another in a circle, amiable, light-hearted, filling the hollow in his chest with thick red.

A voice brought him back to the situation at hand. "Nakoma, calm down. What ship? What clouds?"

"The same ship John Smith came here on. But it's bringing the darkness with it this time."

The old man held her hands in his wrinkled copper ones. "Nakoma, darkness doesn't come all at once. It's a gradual thing, like the night coming over the land."

"Yeah, well this time it's not listening, Kekata. I bet you've felt it coming just the same as Pocahontas and I've felt it. It's coming and it's coming _now._"

So this was Kekata, the medicine man. He was frowning deeply at her. "Something's changed in you, Nakoma," he said. She closed her eyes as his wise hands brushed over her face, as though learning them through touch. "Your spirit is lighter then when you were last here."

"Kekata, _please. _I know it's hard to believe, but this isn't something that we can wait out." She took one of her hands out of her elder's and gestured towards Lexaeus. "This is Lexaeus, and he's going to help us."

"Nakoma!" another voice interrupted. No one had much time to react as a figure blurred into the gathering place, flinging themselves into the woman called. Once the stranger had properly wrapped Nakoma in a tight hug, Lexaeus could see that it was another young woman: taller, with a curtain of long black hair. She released her after a moment, grinning. "I was wondering if you'd gotten lost."

"Oh, like I don't know those woods as well as you do." Nakoma's smile immediately turned into a frown. "Pocahontas, I've just been up on the mountain. John Smith's ship is returning."

Another interruption: this time a man's voice, deep and thrumming. "Who has caused all this havoc in my village?"

A man about as tall as Xaldin entered Kekata's circle. His black hair fell in a long curtain over his left shoulder, not unlike the woman who he now knew was Pocahontas. Given the headdress of feathers he wore, Lexaeus assumed that this was Chief Powhatan.

He was closely followed by a huge group of grown men, fresh mud clinging to their legs and feet, obviously having followed them down from the hill. They eyed him distrustfully, muscles in their arms and upper body moving under bare russet skin. He thought with a fleeting smirk what it might be like to take them all on at once. "I, Lexaeus, am I responsible for the mudslide that occurred a few moments ago." He pressed a hand to his chest. "But I assure you, that's no havoc compared to what's coming for us."

"You're Lexaeus," Pocahontas said, stepping away from her friend and towards him. "Nakoma told me about you. You're the spirit from another world."

Nakoma looked away discreetly, and Lexaeus nodded. "I am from another world. And I'm here to warn you."

"Warn against what?" Pocahontas's hair swayed as she looked to him, then back to Nakoma. "What did you mean, John Smith's ship was returning?"

Nakoma took Pocahontas's hands again. "We don't have a lot of time to explain. But you remember how, before I left, I was having dreams about a storm?"

"But people have dreams about storms all the time."

"And you've been dreaming the same thing since I've left, haven't you?"

"Well…yes. But how did you guess?"

"Pocahontas, that storm," Nakoma pointed to the patch of dark sky above the trees, "is being brought here by John Smith's ship. I saw it with my own eyes."

"A storm obeys no man's command," Chief Powhatan said.

"It's not a man that's commanding it. And it's not a storm of nature. You haven't heard thunder once this morning, have you?" Lexaeus challenged. "Darkness is a silent killer."

"Darkness?" Pocahontas asked.

"The darkness from inside men's hearts. Nakoma has told me of a man in black armour. I have reason to believe his thirst for violence might've brought him back here," he continued.

"I'm not sure I understand." Pocahontas shook her head.

"We don't need to," Kekata spoke up. "This spirit was the one who gave Nakoma the salts that have protected the village from the Black Elk, if I remember correctly."

"How has that been working?" Lexaeus asked. Among all the things going on, he had forgotten that he had already tried to help these people before.

One of the warriors in the crowd spoke. "I saw one while hunting. They've stayed away from the village."

Kekata's fire suddenly sputtered, throwing sparks like arrowheads into the smoke. The red smoke faded, and beyond the fire, a Black Elk charged towards them.

Before any one of the villagers or Lexaeus could move, a grey blur shot out from the warriors' legs. Pocahontas shouted "Meeko!" The Black Elk tossed its head, agitated; there was a familiar sound of metal and glass.

Lexaeus nearly laughed aloud when the Heartless was hit in the head with a stream of soda pop. It faltered to a stop, yellow eyes squinting, nostrils flaring in animalistic frustration. A raccoon, of all things, had struck the first defensive blow by popping the cap off Nakoma's pop bottle.

He walked forward, and took the empty bottle from 'Meeko', who seemed to pass it off while still glaring at the creature. Lexaeus smashed the bottle over the monster's head, the shards sinking into it like tar. He stabbed the jagged edges of the broken bottle through the creature's chest and it tossed its head in a silent scream. The glass shone like a second rack of antlers in the sunlight before it disappeared.

Nakoma was beside him in a second. She bent down, picked up the bottle cap and handed it to him. He tucked it in his pocket without thinking. Before she could speak, he twirled the bottle in his hand. "I can't believe you kept this."

She shrugged at him almost cheekily. "You gave it to me. Of course I kept it."

He was careful when he handed it back to her. "Then keep it. And use it."

When they turned away from the woods, some of the women and children had arrived, lead by a grey pug with a blue collar. Meeko had climbed up on Pocahontas's shoulders, watching a bright green hummingbird float around their heads. Chief Powhatan and his daughter came forward, separate from the rest. "How do we defeat this enemy?" the chief asked.

"Use any weapon, any person, any method. It is the strength in your hearts that will win this battle."

The chief and his daughter exchanged warm smiles. "Then this will be a simple victory."

"The enemy will be approaching from the shore. I suggest moving those who cannot fight to higher ground."

The chief nodded. Pocahontas frowned tersely. "We'll need to warn the settlers."

"Nakoma, Mighty Spirit," the chief bowed his head respectfully. "May I ask you to go ahead? I must talk to my daughter before this battle begins."

"Of course," Nakoma said. She nodded up at Lexaeus. "I'll take you to the settlers."

She led him away from the growing crowd and totem poles. "Have you helped people like this on other worlds?" she asked. They walked past wide-eyed children, holding onto their parents' hands and if not, each other's hands. She was very careful of where she pointed the broken bottle.

"No. Never."

She grinned at him. "You're a natural."

There was a sound of trumpeting calls, and even more people came out of their houses and moved past them, towards Kekata's gathering place. Nakoma finally started moving into the woods, freeing them of the crowd. They had been under the trees for barely five minutes when Nakoma stopped and told him to wait. "She's catching up. I can hear her."

He opened his mouth to ask, but Pocahontas came out of the trees behind them, a huge war club slung over her shoulder. Meeko the raccoon rode on her other shoulder while the hummingbird finished tying the leather ribbon fastening her braid.

"He gave you his _club?_" Nakoma asked, dumbfounded.

She nodded, walking up to join them. "He said he had his own, and I'd need something to protect myself."

"Daddy's little girl?" Lexaeus guessed.

"Definitely," Nakoma replied.

Pocahontas frowned at her friend before saying "Well, we should go if these monsters are really coming as quickly as you say." She ran off ahead of them. The club didn't hinder her in the least. "It isn't far from here."

Nakoma shrugged at him, and took off after her best friend. He had no choice but to follow.

At first it was easy to keep within sight of them. But soon, even without a heart beat weighing him down, he could only _hear_ Nakoma and Pocahontas darting in between trees. They were laughing at each other, the sound coming from all around him as they darted out of sight to his left and then his right. He caught sight of Nakoma's glass bottle and Pocahontas's club, weapons so out of place in the morning sunlight. He started understanding then, why Grandmother Willow had been wary of him: they were _her _children in the end. Children of nature.

He came out of the woods on a hillside, above a small group of buildings enclosed by a high wooden fort. A little beyond it he could see the shoreline, and a small group of bewildered settlers gathering on the shore, no doubt wondering what the ship approaching wanted or who was on board.

"No," Nakoma said beside him.

The ship hit the shore and the whole world shook. The sky darkened, and the shadows in the woods behind them became impenetrable walls of night. The settlers weren't screaming yet, but they would be. Lexaeus started running down the hill, Nakoma and Pocahontas after him, laughter gone from their lips.

The first scream came when they are half-way down the hill. There was a black bear with yellow eyes charging towards the fort, and the men with guns on the battlements weren't responding. Nakoma sprinted towards it, cutting across the grass in front of him, glass bottle glaring in the weakened light.

"Nakoma!" Pocahontas shouted. Even at the distance they were at, both of them saw her plunge her bottle into the chest of the bear. There was a sound like thunder, and Lexaeus felt something like lightning in him as the bullet managed to miss her. The bear roared as Nakoma twisted the bottle in deeper and backed off. The yellow eyes flared, and then the head reeled back, breaking into dusty pieces before it hit the ground.

They reached the wall of the fort at the same time as Nakoma, where she immediately leaned on Pocahontas's shoulder. Meeko patted her head as she caught her breath. A blonde woman stood nearby, holding her husband's rifle. She shoved it back into his hands. "_Two_ eyes open, Thomas taught you, yeah?"

Her husband, a red-haired man with a goatee, chuckled sheepishly. He looked around at the three of them, his eyes lingering on Lexaeus and his sheer height. "Pocahontas, who's your friend?"

"He's a spirit, Mr. Brown," Pocahontas said, shifting the club on her shoulder.

"Not your run-of-the-mill spirit," Mrs. Brown said sceptically. "I can _see _him."

The doors to the fort burst open, and people ran screaming from within, Black Elks struggling to stand as they formed out of shadows and gave chase. There was a screech from the sky and they looked up to see more of the hideous eagles from days before descending upon them like dragons.

He raised his hand, bringing his tomahawk to form and crushing one's head in a single swing as it came down towards them. The air sang a single note as Pocahontas swung her father's club through the air, hitting an eagle in the side and then again in the back.

A roar from the woods caused them to turn and look behind them. A warrior was riding one of the Heartless bears out into the open, struggling to stab it in the neck with a stone dagger. After him, a countless amount of Pocahontas's people emerged from the shroud of the woods, weapons held high. "They're coming from the woods _and _the shore," Lexaeus observed. "_Damn _it."

"Let's move, then," Nakoma said. "Pocahontas, I'm going to need your help."

"Yes, anything," Pocahontas replied, but he didn't get to hear the rest of Nakoma's plea. He was running into the fort, knowing that by going through it he'd be able to reach the shore more quickly than working around the walls.

The sight of the small settlement covered from brick chimney to woodpile in a thick tar like substance barely registered before he had to bat a bear's paw away from his face. The claws still raked down his arm, cutting through the leather like paper. He gritted his teeth against the pain, brought his tomahawk down on its shoulder. An arrow struck it in the head and a warrior jumped down the walls of the fort. Lexaeus shouldered his way through it, then brought the tomahawk to the ground.

The tremor spread swiftly across the muddy square of the settlement, sending several Heartless into the air, some colliding with their eagle counterparts. One of the walls of the fort came crashing down, and Heartless rushed through the gap in both directions, swiftly followed by both warriors and settlers. Thunderous gunshots exploded and warriors shouted. Pocahontas flashed in his vision, swinging her club into the side of a Black Elk, bowling it over, only to be crushed by an elderly man with a metal frying pan at the ready.

He felt something like another tremor then, but knew he hadn't done anything to create it. He looked up, and after batting another eagle out of the sky, saw the most remarkable thing he had yet to see.

The sky was filled with multicoloured shapes made of pale dawn light. At first they only looked like the folds of a curtain, pieces of aurora borealis. But then they were _animals. _Salamanders, deer, rabbits, moose, hummingbirds, geese, arching downwards through the sky. All of the Heartless seemed to shudder as the Spirits of the Forest crashed down on them like a tidal wave.

Pocahontas was the one who was able to summon them, the sunlight to Nakoma's shade. That's what she had asked her to do.

"Lexaeus! Watch out!"

He turned and saw the woman he had just thought about charging towards him, a bear made of light loping in synch with her, fading into her. She stopped just past him and braced herself against a Black Elk he hadn't noticed, grabbing a hold of its antlers. The thing was easily as heavy as her, but she wouldn't budge.

Then she roared, lifted it off the ground, spun and released. The Black Elk soared through the air and collided with the brick wall of a house, which was reduced to rubble by the impact. She leaned back into his good arm and made an embarrassed sound. He had a feeling it translated to _Why did I channel a bear?_

"The shore. That's where all this will stop," he told her.

She nodded. "Let's go!"

She darted off again, through the hole he had created in the fort wall, and he followed, decimating anything that came in his way with his tomahawk, his good arm, his bad arm, his feet, stone. He lost sight of her many times but found her again as they approached the slope to the shoreline. The guns and the shouting were fainter from here. None of the Heartless had followed them.

The ship was right against the shore and completely silent on deck. Had no one sailed it? Nakoma jogged down the slope of the hill to the bow, and tried to get a closer look into the portholes, but couldn't see anything. She turned back and climbed the crest back to him. "It doesn't look like there's anyone there."

She stopped suddenly, her foot stuck to something in the ground. They both saw the tar-darkness from the fort spreading, blossoming up from the ground, thick and steady. It was up to her knees in seconds, washing in from over the waves, from the hull of the boat, from everywhere. "Lexaeus!" she yelped, wading through it, only to slip and fall deeper.

A figure launched from the deck and landed behind her, not hindered by the tar at all. It looked something like a portly suit of black armour with red eyes in its ugly face. Something inside his chest thrummed as it came closer to her and he dived into the tar that was already around his ankles.

His head was still far above the surface of the stuff, whereas Nakoma had sunk up to her waist. He stretched his tomahawk out to her and she grabbed onto the hook at the end and pulled herself closer to him. "I have a really crazy idea, and I have no idea if it'll work."

Heartless were starting to form in the tar; he could see their eyes burning. "Experiment," he replied.

She bowed her head immediately, closing her eyes and concentrating. There was another tremor in the sky, and he lifted his head just in time to see a stream of spirits dive out of the sky into Nakoma's body.

Their colours settled on her skin and in her hair and on her eyelashes, and he knew immediately that this _was _a crazy idea, and he'd be changed forever by it. With that fleeting idea come and gone in his head, she reached up, laid both her palms out on the center of his chest and-

Light-colour-sound. He could feel feathers and hoof beats and claws and teeth and speckled brown inside him. The spirits curved up in a great dome above his head, and as the light behind his eyelids faded he could see them moving in the air, charging around in a protective circle. The motion of it fluttered their clothes. They were free of the tar within the circle, but the Heartless eagerly pressed against the barrier of spiders and wolves.

Nakoma seemed to crumple inwards a little, clutching at her chest. "I think… our powers just switched places. You're spirit isn't just like a bear." She leaned on him a little and he let her. "It's like a _mountain._"

"Well, use it."

"Huh?" She looked up as he raised his tomahawk into the air. The moving barrier of sight and sound and spirit moved in towards it, collecting inside and on the surface, making it glow a deep orange-gold.

"You've channelled my spirit before. You can do it again." He could feel the spirits still charging about inside him, leaving paw prints on his bones and quiet veins.

"Well, sure, but how do I act-" she was interrupted when Lexaeus brought his axe down on an Elk that charged at him, cleaving it in two, "like a mountain?"

"Anyway you want. Go crazy."

She made a nervous sound through her gritted teeth and dashed off into the tar. He turned and faced down the mass of Black Elk and bears with black-purple fur. He swung his tomahawk through three with one sweep, and he thought that he had to be hitting air. But the strength of so many spirits besides his own sent the Heartless crumbling into mist before they had the chance to duck their heads and charge.

The tomahawk had never felt so light in his hands. He tested himself: jumped at one of the bears, bringing his weapon over his head before sweeping down as he landed. He thought he might've heard a skull smashing, but he couldn't remember if Heartless had skeletons.

There was loud cry of pain from behind him. He hadn't even turned around before he shouted, "Nakoma!"

The Heartless bear she was facing had gone up on its hind legs, and it came down towards her, its claws landing on her shoulders. Remarkably, she remained standing, but stumbled backwards. He pretended not to see the blood. Frustrated and frightened, she stamped her foot to the ground.

The earth jutted up all around her, ripping the bear and several elk into pieces. He could barely see her through the torn pieces of earth, but he heard a broken gasp of laughter from within it. She was _laughing._

The earth shook again, Nakoma's broken walls falling down and the earth behind him rising up like a seismic seesaw. He was completely unaffected by it, but the Heartless were being torn apart. More of the Heartless eagles dived down at his head, but he swept them out of the air as easily as cobwebs.

Nakoma was moving around the beach, he realized, finding a dim pattern in the circles of exploding earth. He moved up the shore, away from the haphazard waves, to catch a glimpse of her. She was doing something like a bunny hop around her shoreline, obviously laughing. But her laughter was lost amidst the sound of the earth she commanded in his place. A silent frame of innocence amidst madness.

The spirits inside him swirled oddly in his stomach and he thought it was one of the most strangely beautiful things he had ever seen.

The earth shook to a slow stop and she stumbled out of her ring of rock towards him. He found himself grinning at her as she let her arms flop by her sides, her shoulders still injured and rickety from the vibrations. He summoned Cure magic to his hands and put his hands on her shoulders, letting the skin heal.

"You make a good mountain," he said.

She smiled. "You make a good shaman."

"Thank you, but," he looked around the beach she had made short work of; "you stole all my test subjects."

"Test subjects?" she asked, raised an eyebrow and frowning.

"It's a 'different world' thing."

"Hm." She looked up the sharp curve of the shore towards the settlement and the battle that still raged about it. "It's not over." She looked back up at him. "The man in the black armour – he was behind me, wasn't he?"

He felt something change inside: the spirits coursing through him sped up, preparing themselves to go even farther into battle. She backed away from his hand so she could look at the thin black line tracing a wide circle around them. When the circle closed, and blackness rose from the line up into the sky to encase them in a dark dome, he said, "Yes, and I think he's back."

The darkness overtook the dim sun in the sky and they were left in starless silence. Nakoma rolled her shoulders back, testing the healing skin as she spotted yellow eyes forming in the distance. "Well, this is a good sign, don't you think?"

"Oh, without a doubt," he replied.

"I think I'll take care of those things," she said, and he was a little stricken by the way she called them 'things'. "You deal with the guy who blew up our homeland."

She took off into the darkness, and was eventually swallowed by the distance. A couple of seconds later, the earth rumbled from her direction. His lips quirked at the edges, but were quickly brought back down as he heard metal clank nearby. He raised his tomahawk, expecting to see the red eyes out in the gloom. But only the glow of the spirits off the tomahawk moved in the air.

Then something clanged against his tomahawk, punched him with iron knuckles and slashed sideways across his stomach. He only grunted, stumbling from the speed, listening as mad laughter filled his ears. The distant rumbling had stopped. Nakoma shouted out to him. "Lexaeus!"

He raised his weapon, standing tall again. The laughter wasn't coming from any one direction, and neither was her voice. "I can't see him," he told her.

"You-" An invisible sword clanging on the tomahawk cut off her response and he was slashed in his good arm. His weapon had never felt shaky in his grip before that moment.

"Where are you?" he called out to her again.

"The settlers said he lied to them, blinded them to their own greed. He's using it on you!"

"How does that even-" He heard the clank of the Heartless's armour again and swung automatically. He made contact against something and followed up, bringing the tomahawk down on the Heartless with a short jump.

"Let the spirits guide you!" she shouted.

There was a pause in the battle as the Heartless recovered from the jump attack. If Nakoma had forced the spirits into him, how was he supposed to let them guide him?

They seemed to answer his question for him, sending the sound of stampeding out of his chest and into the air. Like echolocation, he felt a disturbance in the air, a pocket of translucent rage and dented armour. He threw his weapon while running towards it, knowing without knowing it would hit the Heartless in the chest, stun it, and return. By then the _thing _became visible again, and he grabbed what used to be a human throat in one hand.

He lifted it off the ground, either commanding or allowing the spirits within him to fly out of his body into the Heartless. It struggled weakly as light charged into it, cracking the metal armour from underneath, the fissures making metallic tearing sounds. Lexaeus watched with cold satisfaction as its limbs turned into stone and crumbled, taking the dark clouds around him with it.

Then the sun shone across the ocean. The beach was empty save for the woman crossing the sand between them, smiling at him. There was dirt smeared all across her face and in her hair. The skin on one shoulder had opened again and he knew that it would scar. She stood next to him and the waves lapped against the hull of an empty ship, its commandeer gone.

---

"The sky looks fuller tonight."

They were sitting in the woods, at the bottom of the clearing just underneath his Gummi ship. She was on top of a boulder, and he was just beside her on bare ground. The world's heartbeat was steady and healthy underneath his palms again. He looked up and saw what seemed like hundreds of stars in the sky.

"Do you think so?"

"Hm. I was worried it was getting a little empty. I guess I was imagining things."

He heard something else in her silence, something like, _Everything's alright here now._ And right now it was. But by the end of this conversation…

"Alright, tell me."

He looked over at her, on level with her for the first time. The moonlight made everything blue in the forest. A cloud of fireflies left gold stars in the pond behind her. "Tell you what?"

She smiled at him tentatively. "Anything. Anything that you're thinking."

"I'm thinking… I want you to come with me. And I don't know why."

"I… would be honoured by that."

"I'm not sure you would."

Crickets chirp into the silence, violins in empty space.

"You can tell me."

"…I'd have to change you."

She looks at the ground near his feet. "Into a spirit? I'd have to-"

"Not dying. Transforming you. You wouldn't have the same voice. Not even vocal chords." He realized with a delay that she probably didn't know what vocal chords were. "You couldn't sleep, wouldn't dream." _I already tried, but you won anyway. I don't know how, but you won._

She shut her eyes at that. "But I want to see you again. I want-" He pretended not to notice the catch in her voice. "I want to be able to talk to you."

"It would be selfish of me." He started explaining as he realized. "You wouldn't be the same, Nakoma." _Not even your name. _"And it's you-"

Stop. Silence.

"You reminded me that there are things worth saving, even if it means putting your own betterment at risk."

He looked away then, found himself drawn to the fireflies and the stars and bulrushes. "You're a hero."

The nickname had never been as confusing as when it was spoken in her voice. He turned towards her again. Her eyes and smile were gentle. "That's what heroes do. They stay behind to help those who cannot help themselves, when no one else will stay."

His lungs filled with night air. The air in this world was so clean. He was going to miss it dearly. "I think I understand now."

She tilted her head, curious. He was going to miss that, dearly. "Understand what?"

"A riddle a friend posed me what seems like a very long time ago."

She nodded. She was starting to understand that he was far more human than he had ever implied and she went to hug her knees to her chest. But he needed to stop that. It wasn't over yet.

He reached into his pocket and found the bottle cap he had stored there. He held it up in the moonlight. "Can I ask you to promise me something?"

She smiled again, sadly, squeezing her eyes shut so the tears pressed to her eyelashes. "That's what my name means. 'I do as I promise'."

He reached out and touched her hand, pressed to the cold rock of her boulder, the one that belonged to the unscarred shoulder. She lifted her hand up, holding it out, waiting. He pressed the bottle cap into her hand, leaning in too close to her.

"Live."

Her voice and her eyes and her face and her lips were a trap – if he got too close, they'd snap shut on him and he'd start thinking that Xemnas wasn't leading them down the right path and everything was _wrong wrong wrong. _"Is that all?"

"That's _every thing._"

He left her. It was strange and it was slow.

Nakoma, down on the earth as the Gummi ship shredded away, pressed the bottle cap into her palm so hard it left a spiny sun.

* * *

**AN. **That last scene _hurt_ to write. And that last line is word play, not a typo. Last chapter will be an epilogue of sorts, wrap everything up.


	6. Aftershock

I do not own _Kingdom Hearts _or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.

_**Ships:**_ (friendship) Lexaeus&Zexion  
_**Warnings:**_ None.

* * *

_**Beating Drum Heart**_**  
Chapter 6: Aftershock**

_Our heroes are people and people are flawed. Don't let that taint the thing you love._  
~ Randy K. Milholland

* * *

Zexion found him perched on the top of Memory's Skyscraper. He sat down to his right side beside him on the metal ledge, careful not to disturb the pile of unsolved Rubik's cubes. Not wanting to jump into things right away, he cast a glance over his shoulder at Aeleus's memories being broadcast onto the monitors behind them. Even flickered into Vexen and back.

The Rubik's cube in Lexaeus's hands stopped clicking and Zexion watched as he added another block to the miniature skyscraper to his left, its walls made up of blocks of three-by-three colour. Zexion handed him one from his pile of jumbled cubes and kept one for himself, turning the pieces around passively.

"You know, I never had enough patience to solve one of these things," he said. He waited. Only Lexaeus's fingers moved to turn the pieces of the puzzle.

Zexion tossed his Rubik's cube at his friend's head, where it bounced off his temple harmlessly and rolled away across the rooftop. Before Lexaeus could react beyond turning towards him, Zexion started speaking. "You're solving Rubik's cubes. You haven't said a word –" an accusing finger jab cut off what he knew would be a reminder of the 'silent' part of a certain nickname, "spoken or unspoken in days. Something is wrong."

Lexaeus opened his mouth again but Zexion stood and started to pace about the roof. "I honestly don't understand it, Lexaeus. I've known you for two lifetimes, and I know you're not anti-social. Xemnas was pleased with your report; we'd never thought that the earth connected you to the heartbeat of the world too. But here you are _avoiding_ everyone." He stopped and held his index finger in front of Lexaeus's forehead meaningfully. "So help me, I might invade your mental space and find out for myself."

Lexaeus didn't blink. "I saved a world."

"You… what?"

Lexaeus broke eye contact, actually _sighed _for himself. "It was going to fall into darkness if I didn't do anything."

"That… doesn't make any sense," Zexion said above him. "You've let hundred of worlds fall before. We all have. And you've never batted an eye."

"I know. But I've never been able to feel a world's heartbeat before." The leather of his coat creaked slightly as he clutched at where his heart used to be. "I became connected to it, I suspect."

Zexion was silent for a long time, frowning thoughtfully. Eventually he sighed too, sitting back down. "Well, we never _were_ able to hotwire ourselves back into the cardiovascular system of the universe. And Sora stabilized the worlds while you were gone by defeating the Superior's Heartless, so it doesn't matter much, but it doesn't change the fact that you defied protocols."

"I know."

"If a world native spots you, they're to be eliminated."

"The first time, when I crashed, she saved my life."

"…The _first_ time," Zexion repeated, his voice rising just the slightest. "You mean, this second trip, you went _back _to the same world you were spotted in?"

"I tried to turn her into a Heartless the second time," Lexaeus replied defensively.

"And?" Zexion opened his arms, probably hoping a new Dusk would appear out of the open air and Lexaeus could introduce them.

"It didn't work."

"It didn't… work." Zexion rubbed his eyelids.

"She defeated her own darkness. It was incredible."

"'Incredible'. She defeated… _She._" Zexion repeated Lexaeus's words numbly, letting his head sink into his hands before sighing deeply.

"I know." Lexaeus's fingers started working at the puzzle again unconsciously. Zexion sat up at the sound of the familiar clicking, tore the puzzle from his friend's hand and threw it off the skyscraper.

"Alright, let me get this straight. A world native saved your life from the crash, but you didn't kill her because your powers were connecting your to the world. So then you went back to the world and saved it, alerting thousands to your presence in the process."

"That sounds about right."

Zexion stared at him, looking as confused as Lexaeus had been in the past several weeks.

"Apparently, that makes me a hero."

"Oh, yes. Not only do you do things for others without expecting anything in return, you do things that blur the line between bravery and sheer stupidity."

Lexaeus found a chuckle deep in his chest. "I suppose." When he looked at Zexion again, he found Number VI distracted by the screens behind them. He turned around to see what it was showing, but a twist in his stomach told him he had a good hunch.

Nakoma clutched at her hair, gritted her teeth at someone off-screen. She let her hair fall to her shoulders and then moved out of view.

Zexion drummed his fingers on his chin. "Lexaeus, are you sure your powers connected you _just _to the heart of the world, or-?"

Lexaeus smiled at the gravel and the monitors flicked to a blurry image of Dilan. Zexion turned back with a wide smirk beneath his bangs. "The Hero doesn't have a damsel in distress, does he?"

"If he does, she's certainly not in distress anymore."

Zexion knew that that probably translated to a 'yes', but for once he wasn't entirely certain.

"Hm," he said. "You'll have to tell me more some time."

Lexaeus knew that that translated to 'Your secret is safe with me'. And he smiled gratefully.

---

"Hello, Lexaeus."

The Nobody sat down beside the girl with the sketchbook, in the front row seats of Xigbar's training arena. The page open on her lap showed a cluster of motion sketches made of quick pencil swipes. "Hello, Naminé. What are you doing down here?"

She pointed with the pink eraser end of her pencil towards Xaldin, who was down in the ring sparring with Vexen. "Xaldin brings me down here sometimes when it's his turn to look after me. He said it's important that I know about combat even though I can't fight."

Lexaeus nodded. "It is a good thing for you to observe."

"Is it _really?_" He could hear the cringe in her voice. A little too compassionate for a fighter, but she was still useful to them.

"Yes, I think so," he replied. One of Xaldin's spears glanced off Vexen's shield, and she flinched.

"I heard you found out more about your powers." She flicked through the sketchbook, little flickers of colour passing by. "The geomancers told me. And I think they're changing too."

She stopped at a page of watercolour sketches. He recognized a full-body drawing of Zay taking up the left half of the page, and wondered how far up and how far away the little girl must've been to take his whole form in. On the right, was a diagram of a geomancer's back. A pale red circle with lines webbed through the centre was drawn there.

"It started appearing while you were away. The geomancers told me you must've succeeded in finding a new part of your power. I don't understand the shape, though."

"It's a dreamcatcher," Lexaeus replied quietly. His gloved fingers drifted close to the red paint and he made a note to speak with the geomancers later. "Perhaps, when we come back from Castle Oblivion, I can bring you one. I know the world they come from."

Naminé smiled brightly, but flinched when Xaldin called her name. They looked towards the center ring, where Axel was standing in the doorway, his long arms blocking the way. "And this is the arena, my fine friend!" he announced loudly.

"Goodbye, Lexaeus," Naminé whispered, folding her sketchbook and jumping off the seat. She ran into the portal Xaldin had summoned was closely followed by her watcher.

Roxas managed to shove past his friend just as the last sign of Xaldin and Naminé faded. "I've been to the arena tonnes of times, Axel! Stop being such a jerk."

"Oh, but being a jerk is so much fun." Axel reached out and ruffled Roxas's blond spikes fondly, before the boy brushed off his hand and looked around the arena.

"Weird. I thought I heard Xaldin in here a second ago."

"You did," Vexen said, dismissing his blue shield to the air. "And I was nearly winning our match before you interrupted."

"Pff, yeah. Sure," Roxas replied, turning his attention to Lexaeus as Vexen spluttered in exasperation. "Lexaeus. You're finally back."

"So it would seem."

"You tested your new powers out yet?"

"They're not exactly powers you can use in battle, Thirteen."

The boy smirked, the air was cut twice by sound and light, and he held his two keyblades. "Never know until you try."

Vexen and Axel glanced at each other and moved out of the ring. Lexaeus stretched out his hand and allowed his tomahawk to come up out of the floor. "Since you asked so kindly, I won't mind sparring with you at all."

Roxas twirled his keyblades in his hand, settled into his fighting stance. "Good. You go first, Hero."

Lexaeus hefted his weapon up into the air, and felt… _something._

The air burned with intensity around him, turning black and orange-red and rising in steady streams above his head. He could see dim, hollow shapes move amidst the colour, like totems of spirits. The earth beat beneath him, readying itself for his command.

Beyond the aura, he could hear Vexen collecting data and Axel make some sort of smart remark. But within it, he could hear only the sound of the forest and the quiet laughter of a woman turned shaman.

And within the hollow of his chest, a silent drum beat thrummed where his heart used to be, pulsing and pushing against his rib cage.

_And he laughed._

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_**Fin**_

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AN. **Happy Lexaeus day, everyone! (I'll probably add more end notes/grand hoorah when I finish posting this all over LiveJournal, ahaah.)


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